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entitled 'Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options: DOE Needs to Enhance Planning
for Technology Assessment and Collaboration with Industry and Other
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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Report to Congressional Requesters:
October 2011:
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options:
DOE Needs to Enhance Planning for Technology Assessment and
Collaboration with Industry and Other Countries:
GAO-12-70:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-12-70, a report to congressional requesters.
Why GAO Did This Study:
More demand for electricity and concerns about greenhouse gas
emissions have increased interest in nuclear power, which does not
rely on fossil fuels. However, concerns remain about the radioactive
spent fuel that nuclear reactors generate. The Department of Energy
(DOE) issued a research and development (R&D) plan to select nuclear
fuel cycles and technologies, some of which reprocess spent fuel and
recycle some of nuclear material, such as plutonium. These fuel cycles
may help reduce the generation of spent fuel and risks of nuclear
proliferation and terrorism. GAO was asked to review (1) DOE’s
approach to selecting nuclear fuel cycles and technologies, (2) DOE’s
efforts to reduce proliferation and terrorism risks, and (3) selected
countries’ experiences in reprocessing and recycling spent fuel. GAO
reviewed DOE’s plan and met with officials from DOE, the nuclear
industry, and France and the United Kingdom.
What GAO Found:
DOE’s R&D plan relies on a systematic approach—that is, the use of
scientific methods and engineering principles—to select and
demonstrate nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies. However,
it does not explain the current readiness levels of the technologies
associated with the fuel cycles and the estimated time and cost of
further development; it also does not explain how DOE will collaborate
with the nuclear industry and other countries experienced in nuclear
R&D in achieving its goals. In particular:
* In 2010, DOE screened 863 previously identified nuclear fuel cycles
and technologies and grouped them into 266 fuel cycles for further
exploration. Independent reviewers found this screening process useful
and recommended changes that DOE officials stated they would act on.
* DOE’s R&D plan states that it is necessary to assess the readiness
levels of technologies associated with nuclear fuel cycles. However,
neither the plan nor the screening process describe the current
readiness levels of all critical technologies or the time or estimated
costs for further development. As GAO has reported, assessing the
readiness of technology is a best practice to help control schedule
and costs.
* DOE’s R&D plan states the importance of collaborating with the
nuclear industry—the ultimate user of any fuel cycle and technologies
that are developed—and DOE continues to get industry advice. However,
the plan does not include a strategy for long-term collaboration with
industry, without which DOE cannot be assured that the nuclear
industry will accept and use the fuel cycles and technologies that the
department may develop.
* DOE has agreements with other countries that provide collaborative
opportunities to share research results and leverage DOE’s R&D
efforts, such as using the countries’ research facilities. However,
the plan does not explain how DOE will use these agreements to advance
its R&D goals.
As stated in DOE’s R&D plan, the Office of Nuclear Energy has efforts
under way to minimize proliferation and terrorism risks associated
with nuclear power, but faces challenges. These challenges include
developing reliable and cost-effective fuel cycles while minimizing
the attractiveness to potential adversaries of radioactive materials
resulting from these cycles. NNSA is also working on these issues, and
the two agencies have worked together informally to avoid duplication
and overlap but do not have a formal mechanism to collaborate on
future efforts, which can help agencies strengthen their commitment to
work collaboratively by clarifying who will lead or participate in
which activities and how decisions will be made.
GAO reviewed France’s and the United Kingdom’s decades of experiences
in developing and operating reprocessing and recycling
infrastructures. These experiences can provide some insights into the
decisions DOE may need to make in selecting nuclear fuel cycles and
technologies. For example, reprocessing and recycling is likely to
reduce the amount of space needed for a nuclear waste repository
because some of the radioactive materials are reused, but the amount
of this reduction would depend on how much of the radioactive
materials that are reused might ultimately require disposal in such a
repository.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that DOE revise its plan to include the current
readiness levels of fuel cycle technologies and the estimated time and
cost to develop them, include a strategy for long-term collaboration
with the nuclear industry, and specify how DOE will use international
agreements to advance its efforts. GAO also recommends that DOE’s
Office of Nuclear Energy and its National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) complete a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to
avoid duplication and overlap of efforts. DOE agreed with the first
three recommendations and did not rule out the future use of a MOU.
GAO continues to believe that this formal collaboration mechanism is
needed.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-70] or key
components. For more information, contact Gene Aloise at (202) 512-
3841 or aloisee@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Background:
DOE's R&D Plan Lays Out a Systematic Approach to Selecting and
Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Cycles but Lacks Important Details:
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy Is Working to Understand and Minimize
Proliferation and Terrorism Risks but Faces Challenges and Has Not
Formally Coordinated with NNSA:
French and British Experiences in Reprocessing and Recycling Can
Provide Insights for U.S. Decision Making:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Response:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix II: Significant R&D Challenges in Selecting and Demonstrating
Nuclear Fuel Cycles:
Appendix III: The French Experience in Reprocessing and Recycling
Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Appendix IV: The French Reprocessing and Recycling Process and the
Resulting Radioactive Material:
Appendix V: The United Kingdom Experience in Reprocessing and
Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Energy and GAO's Response:
Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Potential Promise of Options for Developing a Sustainable
Nuclear Fuel Cycle:
Table 2: Nuclear Facilities in the United States and in Countries That
Have Collaborative Agreements with the United States:
Figures:
Figure 1: Composition of Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Figure 2 side A: Reprocessing and Recycling Process in France and the
Resulting Radioactive Materials:
Abbreviations:
AGR: advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactor:
ANDRA: Agence Nationale pour la Gestion des Déchets Radioactifs
(French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency):
CEA: Commissariat á l'Énergie Atomique (French Atomic Energy
Commission):
DOE: Department of Energy:
EdF: Electricité de France:
GNEP: Global Nuclear Energy Partnership:
HLW: high-level waste:
IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency:
ID/IQ: Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity:
IFNEC: International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation:
ILW-LL: intermediate-level waste long lived:
INL: Idaho National Laboratory:
LLW: low-level waste:
MOX: mixed oxide:
NDA: Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (United Kingdom):
NEA: Nuclear Energy Agency:
NNSA: National Nuclear Security Administration:
OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development:
R&D: research and development:
THORP: Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant:
U.K. United Kingdom:
UP: Usine de Plutonium (Plutonium Factory):
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
October 17, 2011:
The Honorable Fred Upton:
Chairman:
Committee on Energy and Commerce:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Edward J. Markey:
House of Representatives:
In recent years, there has been a worldwide push to develop commercial
nuclear power, propelled in part by the need to keep pace with higher
demands for electricity and by concerns about greenhouse gas
emissions, which result primarily from the burning of fossil fuels. As
of July 2011, the United States had 104 operating nuclear power
reactors, 1 under construction, and 34 planned or proposed for
construction by 2030. In addition, other countries have a combined
total of 336 operating reactors, 60 nuclear reactors under
construction, and 463 planned or proposed for construction over the
next two decades. Nuclear energy, which supplied about 20 percent of
the nation's electric power in 2010, offers a domestic source of
electricity with low emissions but also presents difficulties--
including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has been used and
removed from commercial power reactors. This material, known as spent
nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of the most
hazardous materials on earth. The accident involving the nuclear
reactors in Fukushima, Japan, which were damaged by the March 2011
earthquake and tsunami, once again brought to the fore concerns about
the potential for nuclear reactors to fail and problems in dealing
with the spent nuclear fuel generated by these reactors.
Nuclear power generation depends on the nuclear fuel cycle--that is,
the process of mining uranium, enriching it, fabricating it into
nuclear fuel, fissioning the fuel in a nuclear reactor, and managing
the spent fuel once it is removed from the reactor.[Footnote 1] Once
the spent nuclear fuel, which contains plutonium from the fissioning
process, is removed, it may be stored for eventual disposal in a
geologic repository.[Footnote 2] This approach to generating nuclear
energy is referred to as a once-through or open fuel cycle and is the
approach U.S. nuclear utilities use. By contrast, in a closed fuel
cycle, the spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed to separate the plutonium
from the uranium and other radioactive materials for reuse. It may
then be recycled either by mixing the plutonium with uranium from
another source to make mixed oxide fuel, or MOX fuel, or by
fabricating new nuclear fuel, known as reprocessed uranium fuel, by
using the uranium resulting from reprocessing. Other countries, such
as France, rely on a closed fuel cycle to manage their spent nuclear
fuel. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), an advantage of
reprocessing and recycling includes the greater use of the energy
content of the original fuel and a reduction in the amount of
radioactive waste requiring disposal in a geologic repository.
According to a report from the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA)--a semi-autonomous agency within DOE with a lead
role in addressing proliferation and terrorism risks--a key
disadvantage of reprocessing is that it separates out plutonium in the
spent nuclear fuel, which can be used in a nuclear weapon.[Footnote 3]
According to the same NNSA report, other nations might use this
process to divert plutonium for a nuclear weapon, and terrorists might
seek to steal plutonium or other material that could be used in a
nuclear explosive device.
Until the mid-1970s, the United States reprocessed spent nuclear fuel
but reverted to the once-through fuel cycle, primarily to discourage
other countries from pursuing reprocessing because of concerns over
nuclear proliferation. In 2006, DOE announced its intention to
reconsider reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, as part of an effort known
as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Under GNEP, DOE
proposed, among other things, building multibillion-dollar nuclear
facilities to demonstrate advanced reprocessing and recycling
technologies that could significantly reduce waste, as well as reduce
proliferation and terrorism risks by making nuclear fuel in a manner
that is less useful to adversaries.[Footnote 4] However, in April
2008, we reported that the technologies that DOE proposed for
demonstration were not sufficiently developed to warrant the building
of commercial-scale facilities and that DOE's backup plan to rely on
commercially available technology would not meet GNEP's goals of
significantly reducing waste and minimizing proliferation risk.
[Footnote 5]
Congress eliminated funding for GNEP in fiscal year 2009.[Footnote 6]
The House Committee on Appropriations encouraged the next
administration to take a more comprehensive and responsible approach
to the management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste.[Footnote 7] The Committee supported DOE's research on nuclear
fuel cycles but provided no funding for the design and construction of
facilities for recycling spent nuclear fuel and for associated
research facilities. Instead, the Committee directed DOE to focus on
reducing the waste generated by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel,
designing safeguard measures for reprocessing facilities, and
researching ways to reduce the proliferation risks of reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel. Moreover, the Committee directed the department to
continue to coordinate this research effort with other countries
having advanced fuel cycle capabilities, such as France and the United
Kingdom. In January 2010, in a memorandum to the Secretary of Energy,
the President directed DOE to establish the Blue Ribbon Commission on
America's Nuclear Future to conduct a comprehensive review of policies
for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all
alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and
defense spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The Commission issued a
draft report on July 29, 2011, and plans to issue a final report in
January 2012, after considering public comments.[Footnote 8] The draft
report discussed, among other things, the current status of nuclear
fuel cycles and associated technologies and the extent to which DOE
contributes to efforts to further develop them, as well as other
countries' experiences in waste management programs and their
potential usefulness for the United States.
In April 2010, DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy issued a new research
and development (R&D) "roadmap" for nuclear energy with four
objectives, followed by separate implementation plans for each of
these objectives.[Footnote 9] In this report, we refer to the roadmap
and the implementation plans collectively as DOE's R&D plan. This
report focuses on two of these objectives.[Footnote 10] Under the
first objective, DOE seeks to select and demonstrate sustainable
nuclear fuel cycles. According to DOE, sustainable nuclear fuel cycles
are those that would better utilize uranium resources, maximize energy
generation, minimize waste generation, improve safety, and limit
proliferation and terrorism risks. DOE acknowledges that its key
challenge in this objective is to develop a suite of options that will
enable future decision-makers to make informed choices about how best
to manage the spent fuel from reactors. Under the second objective,
DOE seeks to understand and minimize the potential risks of
proliferation and terrorism associated with the technologies for
reprocessing and recycling.
In this context, you asked us to review DOE's plans to assess nuclear
fuel cycles and associated technologies and other countries'
experiences with these technologies. Our objectives were to review the
(1) approach DOE is taking to select and demonstrate nuclear fuel
cycles and associated technologies, (2) efforts DOE is making to
understand and minimize nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks
associated with these nuclear fuel cycles and technologies, and (3)
experiences of France and the United Kingdom in reprocessing and
recycling spent nuclear fuel that may be useful to the United States
in selecting fuel cycles and technologies.
To address these objectives, we reviewed DOE's approach to implement
its new R&D plan for selecting and demonstrating nuclear fuel cycles
and understanding and minimizing the risks of proliferation and
terrorism. We obtained and reviewed pertinent documents and
interviewed cognizant Office of Nuclear Energy officials, as well as
officials from the NNSA and the Department of State, which are two of
the federal government's lead agencies for proliferation and terrorism
risks. We visited experts at the Idaho National Laboratory, which is
the Office of Nuclear Energy's lead laboratory; and interviewed a
nonprobability sample of experts at other national laboratories, such
as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory,
and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, about nuclear fuel options,
waste management, proliferation and terrorism risks, and related
issues. Because we used a nonprobability sample of experts at national
laboratories to speak with, the information we obtained from these
experts cannot be generalized to all experts at all national
laboratories, but the interviews provided us with information on the
perspectives of various experts from the national laboratories. We
also conducted semi-structured interviews with five subject matter
experts who could provide a range of views on reprocessing and
recycling spent nuclear fuel and on DOE's R&D plan. To select these
experts for interviews, we reviewed presentations given by them before
the Blue Ribbon Commission, reviewed literature by experts who had
conducted extensive research on relevant issues, and sought
recommendations from other subject matter experts and government
officials. We also attended an international conference and DOE
workshops on recycling technologies and reviewed pertinent documents
delivered by witnesses to and issued by the Blue Ribbon Commission. In
addition, we interviewed representatives from the six nuclear industry
groups that signed contracts with DOE in 2010 to provide advice and
information on its ongoing and planned R&D.[Footnote 11] We also spoke
with representatives from a nonprobability sample of two nuclear
utility companies out of the 26 operating in the United States; the
Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the nuclear energy
and technologies industry; and the Electric Power Research Institute,
an independent, nonprofit organization that provides R&D relating to
the generation, delivery, and use of electricity. Because we used a
nonprobability sample of nuclear utility companies to speak with, the
information we obtained from them cannot be generalized to all nuclear
utility companies, but the interviews we had with utility company
representatives provided us with information on the perspectives of
nuclear utility companies.
To obtain information on the operating experiences of reprocessing and
recycling spent nuclear fuel in France and the United Kingdom, we
reviewed relevant documents about their nuclear power systems and
visited these countries to obtain additional documents and interview
government, nuclear industry, and utility representatives who oversee
and manage the reprocessing and recycling infrastructures. We selected
France and the United Kingdom because they are among the few countries
that have decades of experience in reprocessing and recycling spent
nuclear fuel. We observed the operations of facilities in these
countries that reprocess spent nuclear fuel and that fabricate MOX
fuel. In addition, we spoke with officials from selected international
nuclear organizations: the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD-NEA), the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the World Nuclear Association, to
obtain an international perspective on reprocessing and recycling
spent nuclear fuel.[Footnote 12] We also interviewed selected subject
matter experts in France and the United Kingdom on these countries'
experiences with reprocessing and recycling.
We conducted this performance audit from May 2010 through October
2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Appendix I
describes our scope and methodology in more detail.
Background:
This section discusses (1) nuclear fuel assemblies and their use, (2)
the composition of spent nuclear fuel, (3) nuclear fuel cycles, (4)
goals to minimize the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism,
and (5) technology readiness assessments to measure and communicate
the risks of using technology in first-of-a-kind applications.
Nuclear Fuel Assemblies and Their Use:
Hundreds of nuclear fuel assemblies--bundles of long metal tubes
filled with enriched uranium fuel pellets--form the core of a typical
nuclear power reactor. Reactors produce energy when uranium atoms
split (fission) into smaller elements, called fission products. Some
of the uranium atoms do not split but rather transmute into elements
with atomic weights heavier than uranium, such as neptunium,
plutonium, americium, and curium. With the buildup of fission products
in the enriched uranium, the fuel loses its ability to sustain a
nuclear reaction, and the fuel assemblies are then replaced with new
fuel. Removed assemblies contain spent nuclear fuel, the radiation
from which, without protective shielding, can kill a person directly
exposed to it within minutes or increase the risk of cancer in people
exposed to smaller doses.
Composition of Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Figure 1 shows the composition of spent nuclear fuel.
Figure 1: Composition of Spent Nuclear Fuel:
[Refer to PDF for image: pie-chart and subchart]
Uranium: 95.6%;
Other: 4.4%; including the following:
* Stable fission products: 2.9%;
* Plutonium: 0.9%;
* Cesium and strontium: 0.3%;
* Iodine and technetium: 0.1%;
* Minor actinides: 0.1%;
* Other fission products: 0.1%.
Source: GAO analysis of DOE data.
[End of figure]
Spent nuclear fuel includes only the fuel components and not the
assemblies used to contain these components. As shown in the figure,
the fuel components of the spent fuel are uranium, plutonium, minor
actinides, and fission products. Minor actinides are a group of
transuranic by-products produced in nuclear reactor operation that are
major contributors to the long-lived hazards of radioactive waste. The
term transuranic generally applies to radioactive material containing
radionuclides (radioactive elements) with atomic numbers higher than
92 (uranium's atomic number) and half-lives longer than 20 years in
concentrations exceeding 100 nanocuries (a measure of radioactivity)
per gram. Some fission products, such as cesium, strontium, iodine,
technetium, and other fission products are radioactive and can remain
dangerous for hundreds to hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Stable fission products do not emit radiation.
As the figure shows, uranium is the primary component in spent nuclear
fuel. Uranium and plutonium are part of a group of elements known as
actinides--the 15 chemical elements on the periodic table with atomic
numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium--and are also
called major actinides. Major actinides are fissile--they easily
undergo fission when hit by a neutron of any energy.[Footnote 13]
Minor actinides consist primarily of neptunium, americium, and curium.
Unlike major actinides, minor actinides can be made to fission only
when hit by a neutron with high enough energy. Both major and minor
actinides pose health and environmental risks, some for hundreds of
thousands of years. The remaining component of the material in spent
nuclear fuel is fission products, primarily cesium, strontium, iodine,
and technetium; and stable fission products. Some fission products,
such as cesium and strontium, pose environmental risks for hundreds of
years after being removed from a reactor, while iodine and technetium
can remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Other fission products are stable and no longer emit radiation.
Nuclear Fuel Cycles:
The term "fuel cycle" may either denote the general process of
preparing, fissioning, and disposing of spent nuclear fuel or one of
potentially hundreds of specific processes and combinations of
technologies that may be used to carry out this process. The details
of a specific fuel cycle include the type of fuel, the level of
uranium enrichment, the type of nuclear reactor, and the methods for
reprocessing, recycling, and/or disposing of spent fuel. After a
period of operation, usually every 18 months, U.S. nuclear reactors
generally replace some of their fuel and store the spent fuel immersed
in pools of water or move them into dry storage containers.
As we recently reported, the current nuclear fuel cycle used in most
U.S. reactors presents several challenges, including the lack of a
geologic repository for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel.
[Footnote 14] DOE is proposing to select and demonstrate sustainable
nuclear fuel cycles that could address this and other challenges.
DOE's R&D plan defined sustainable fuel cycles as those that would
better utilize uranium resources, maximize energy generation, minimize
waste generation, improve safety, and limit proliferation and
terrorism risks. To achieve this objective, DOE proposes R&D on
technologies for three categories of fuel cycles:
* Once-through fuel cycle--technologies to more efficiently use
uranium than the current open fuel cycle while reducing the amount of
radioactive waste generated.
* Modified open fuel cycle--technologies that more efficiently use
uranium, minimize the amount of radioactive waste generated, and
reduce proliferation and terrorism risks using limited or no
reprocessing or recycling.
* Full recycle fuel cycle--technologies to repeatedly reprocess and
recycle nuclear fuels, thereby minimizing the amount of radioactive
waste generated and reducing proliferation and terrorism risks.
Goals to Minimize Risks of Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism:
According to DOE's R&D plan, it is important to ensure that the
benefits of nuclear power can be obtained in a manner that limits
nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks. The plan states that the
Office of Nuclear Energy is responsible for providing technical
expertise and leadership on nuclear technology to the federal agencies
with overall responsibility for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy.
These agencies include NNSA, as well as the Department of State, and
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--responsible for overseeing the
nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors--and other organizations.
According to an NNSA official, the goals of U.S. nuclear
nonproliferation policy are to:
* limit the spread of technologies to enrich uranium and to reprocess
spent nuclear fuel;
* strengthen the international safeguards system, which includes
international agreements to protect against misuse of nuclear
technologies and international design standards for nuclear facilities;
* halt the build-up, and eventually draw down, of stocks of separated
plutonium; and:
* develop nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies that have
lower proliferation and terrorism risks, while recognizing that other
factors contribute to proliferation and terrorism risks, such as the
country in which a nuclear facility is located.
In pursuing these goals, NNSA distinguishes between nuclear
proliferation and terrorism risks. According to a national laboratory
subject matter expert, assessment of proliferation risks considers
whether nations that have nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes,
such as nuclear power, might divert and misuse these facilities to
generate material to build nuclear weapons. International safeguards
under the auspices of the IAEA are used to guard against these risks.
Generally, because of the technology involved, NNSA considers that
proliferation risks will occur over an extended period of time. In
contrast, terrorism risks come from groups not necessarily associated
with a particular nation. Threats associated with terrorism include
the theft of nuclear material and the sabotage of nuclear facilities.
Technology Readiness Assessments:
As we previously reported, technology readiness assessment provides a
systematic way to determine the extent to which a technology critical
to ensuring a project's successful operation is sufficiently developed
for its intended purpose.[Footnote 15] Critical technologies are those
that are essential to a project's success and are either new or are
being applied in a new manner. DOE has begun to assess the readiness
of technologies for recycling spent nuclear fuel using technology
readiness levels, a method pioneered by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration for measuring and communicating the risks
associated with critical technologies in first-of-a-kind applications.
Using a scale from one (basic principles observed) through nine (total
system used successfully in project operations), readiness levels show
the extent to which technologies have been demonstrated to work as
intended. A higher readiness level indicates a new technology has
better demonstrated its suitability relative to a specific set of
criteria, and a decision to proceed with an acquisition of the
technology will accordingly be lower risk. Demonstration of new
technologies at successively larger scales--laboratory scale,
engineering/pilot scale and full/prototypical scale--is one way to
increase their technology readiness, thereby mitigating the risk of
schedule or cost overruns in the design and construction of commercial-
scale facilities and limiting investment in potentially ineffective
technologies. As we have previously reported, GAO considers level
seven (subsystem demonstrated in an operational environment) to be an
acceptable level of readiness before proceeding with final design and
committing to definitive schedule and cost estimates.[Footnote 16]
DOE's R&D Plan Lays Out a Systematic Approach to Selecting and
Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Cycles but Lacks Important Details:
DOE's R&D plan details a systematic approach--that is, the use of
scientific methods and engineering principles--to select and
eventually demonstrate nuclear fuel cycles and associated
technologies. However, the plan does not explain the current readiness
of the critical technologies and the estimated time and costs of
further developing these technologies; it also does not explain how
DOE will collaborate with the nuclear industry and other countries
with experience in conducting nuclear R&D in achieving its goals.
DOE's R&D Plan Relies on a Systematic Approach to Selecting Nuclear
Fuel Cycles and Their Technologies for Further R&D:
DOE's plan lays out R&D objectives for various technical areas and
schedules for achieving them. Under the plan, DOE has the goal of
selecting nuclear fuel cycle options and associated technologies by
2020 and demonstrating them by 2050. Throughout this selection
process, the plan states that DOE will rely on a science-based
approach in conducting its R&D. This approach will involve small-scale
experiments, theory development, and computer modeling and simulation.
The plan states that DOE will develop theories and use the knowledge
and data obtained through experiments to, among other things, develop
and validate modeling and simulation tools to examine nuclear fuel
cycles and associated technologies.
DOE is also following a dual-path approach for nuclear fuel cycle R&D--
simultaneously pursuing evolutionary and revolutionary tracks across
all of its technical R&D areas. That is, according to DOE's R&D plan,
the department is pursuing both advancements of existing fuel cycles
and high-risk, high-payoff technologies that, if successful, could
replace all or part of the evolutionary technologies. For example, DOE
is pursuing a way to economically extract uranium from seawater, which
it would consider a revolutionary breakthrough nuclear fuel cycle
option, if it were to succeed.
To integrate its R&D efforts to select sustainable nuclear fuel
cycles, DOE is relying on a systems engineering approach. According to
DOE's systems engineering guide, a systems engineering approach is an
approach that supports management in clearly defining the mission or
problem; managing system functions and requirements; identifying and
managing risk; establishing bases for informed decision-making; and
verifying that products and services meet customer needs.[Footnote 17]
DOE's plan for developing a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle over the
next 4 decades is divided into the following eight technical R&D areas:
* Systems analysis. Development of computer modeling and simulation to
improve understanding of the interdependences between nuclear fuel
cycle subsystems and associated technologies.
* Fuel resources. Research to better understand the availability of
uranium and other nuclear fuel materials to help inform decisions on
choosing nuclear fuel cycles.
* Fuel development. Research to examine a wide variety of nuclear fuel
to support multiple nuclear fuel cycle options.
* Separations. Development of new separations methods (i.e.,
reprocessing) that enable the recycling and/or transmutation of key
nuclear fuel constituents. These methods must be economical (i.e.,
involve minimal processing), minimize waste streams and volumes, and
enable effective safeguarding of fissile material.
* Waste forms. Development of new technologies for mixing high-level
radioactive waste with different materials, such as ceramics, glasses,
glass-ceramics, and metals to derive a waste form that can maintain
stability and durability under long-term exposure to high levels of
radiation, among other things, and to understand the performance of
these waste forms in complex geologic settings.
* Storage and disposal. Research to identify alternatives to current
practices and the development of technologies to enable the storage,
transportation, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and wastes
generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles.
* Transmutation technology. Development of systems, including nuclear
reactors, that would transmute radioactive materials recovered from
spent fuel to improve the use of the nuclear fuel and significantly
reduce the radioactivity associated with these materials.
* Materials, protection, control, and accountability technology. The
development of new processes and technologies to account for and
protect nuclear materials from proliferation and terrorism risks.
In addition to these technical R&D areas, in 2010, DOE began to
evaluate fuel cycle options in order to guide its R&D program. DOE's
R&D plan defines the following eight criteria to be used in evaluating
the desirability of sustainable nuclear fuel cycle options:
* Nuclear waste management. The weight and volume of the hazardous
material generated from a nuclear fuel cycle and the implications of
these factors on disposition of the waste.
* Resources. The effect of a nuclear fuel cycle on the availability of
nuclear fuel resources over the long term, and the disposal needs
associated with the fuel cycle approach that must be considered in
light of the expected availability of disposal sites.
* Proliferation risks. How the following three factors associated with
a nuclear fuel cycle could determine the overall proliferation and
terrorism risks of that cycle: the extent to which (1) the cycle
generates material that could be easily handled, (2) technologies are
used that could produce weapons-usable material, such as uranium
enrichment and reprocessing technologies, and (3) enrichment and
reprocessing could be protected from misuse.
* Safety. Difficulty of developing fuel cycles that are capable of
obtaining approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safe
operations and for the disposal of radioactive waste from a nuclear
fuel cycle.
* Security. Whether physical security for a nuclear fuel cycle can be
provided that could prevent terrorists or others from gaining access
to the material.
* Economics. The life-cycle costs of a nuclear fuel cycle, including
costs for designing, constructing, operating, dismantling, and
disposing of nuclear facilities and associated wastes.
* Environmental impact. The environmental impacts of a nuclear fuel
cycle, including the impacts from constructing, operating,
dismantling, and disposing of nuclear facilities and associated wastes.
* Technology readiness. The time needed and the cost of developing the
technologies associated with a nuclear fuel cycle.
In 2010, DOE initiated a pilot screening process to systematically
evaluate nuclear fuel cycle options and associated technologies for
each of the three categories of fuel cycles to help guide long-term
R&D. This process used systems engineering principles to develop and
demonstrate a methodology for comparing alternative nuclear fuel
cycles with the once-through cycle using the eight criteria above. In
August 2010, DOE held two workshops to seek input from representatives
of the nuclear industry and subject matter experts on this methodology.
After reaching consensus from workshop participants on a revised set
of evaluation criteria and metrics for the proposed methodology, DOE
convened a panel of national laboratory experts to apply it, starting
with a list of 863 nuclear fuel cycle options and their associated
technologies resulting from prior DOE R&D efforts. As reported to DOE,
the laboratory experts revised this list by categorizing options
according to key characteristics--such as the number and type of
reactors used, the fuel type, and the need for reprocessing. By
consolidating options that were similar, the experts ultimately
produced a list of 266 nuclear fuel cycle options and associated
technologies: 100 were associated with the once-through cycle, 60 with
the modified open cycle, and 106 with the full recycling fuel cycle
category. The laboratory experts then weighted a subset of DOE's
evaluation criteria to determine which options were the most promising
for developing sustainable nuclear fuel cycles, which had modest
potential, and which would provide only minor benefit and thus would
be considered not worth long-term R&D investments. Table 1 shows the
results of this analysis. As the table shows, 83 of 103, or 81
percent, of the most promising options fell under the full recycle
category and 24 of 50, or 48 percent, of the options with only a minor
benefit fell under the modified open fuel cycle category. The experts
noted that these findings can be helpful in focusing DOE's R&D efforts.
Table 1: Potential Promise of Options for Developing a Sustainable
Nuclear Fuel Cycle:
Fuel cycle: Once through;
Most promising: 20;
Modest potential: 54;
Minor benefit: 26;
Total: 100.
Fuel cycle: Modified open;
Most promising: 0;
Modest potential: 36;
Minor benefit: 24;
Total: 60.
Fuel cycle: Full recycle;
Most promising: 83;
Modest potential: 23;
Minor benefit: 0;
Total: 106.
Fuel cycle: Total;
Most promising: 103;
Modest potential: 113;
Minor benefit: 50;
Total: 266.
Source: GAO analysis of DOE data.
[End of table]
In January 2011, the screening process methodology and results were
peer reviewed by an independent panel of four national laboratory
experts and two consultants. According to the panel, the screening
process and its conclusions were "reasonable and useful for a pilot
project" and the results will help inform DOE on what R&D efforts
should be dropped and others that should continue irrespective of
shifts in policy. However, this panel also found that the proposed
methodology had many inherent limitations, such as a lack of
nonproliferation criteria and performance metrics, and suggested
specific areas for improvement. Suggested improvements included using
experts independent of the national laboratories to determine if the
results can be replicated; developing metrics that consider the
effects of the entire fuel cycle, such as mining, uranium enrichment,
and nuclear waste disposal; and further developing metrics for
technology readiness and proliferation and terrorism risks.
In June 2011, the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, a group of
experts established to provide independent advice to DOE, provided
comments on its review of the pilot screening process. The committee
noted that some of the evaluation criteria, such as proliferation
risk, are not appropriate for advanced systems and innovative
technologies that are not close to deployment and not well understood.
As such, the committee suggested caution in applying the evaluation
criteria at the early stages of development to avoid prematurely
ruling out some fuel cycle options and their associated technologies
for further R&D. The committee also stated that because the pilot
screening process results are affected by the weights given to the
evaluation criteria, and the determination of these weights is more a
policy issue than a technical issue, DOE needs to be involved in
setting the relative weights for each evaluation criteria. In
addition, the committee suggested that DOE obtain the comments from
the nuclear industry on the process. According to DOE officials, the
office has begun to take actions to follow up on the suggestions of
the peer review panel, the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, and
other sources in planning to conduct a formal nuclear fuel cycle
screening process during fiscal year 2013.
DOE's R&D plan acknowledged that the recommendations of the Blue
Ribbon Commission might affect DOE's R&D direction. In its July 2011
draft report to the Secretary of Energy, the commission found that no
currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactors and fuel cycle
technologies--including advances in reprocessing and recycling--have
the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge
the United States faces over at least the next several decades. As a
result, the commission concluded, it is "premature" for the United
States to now commit irreversibly to a closed fuel cycle because of
the large uncertainties about the merits and commercial viability of
different fuel cycles and technologies. Nevertheless, the commission
also concluded that the United States should continue to pursue a
program of nuclear energy R&D, both to improve the safety and
performance of existing nuclear energy technologies and to develop new
technologies that could offer significant advantages in, among other
things, safety, cost, waste management, and nonproliferation and
counterterrorism.
In discussing DOE's R&D plan, the commission stated that it provides a
good science-based step toward the development of an effective, long-
term R&D program. It recommended that DOE update its nuclear energy
R&D roadmap once every 4 years and that in doing so this process
should be informed by broader strategic planning efforts, such as
DOE's recently launched quadrennial technology and energy review
processes.
DOE Plans to Assess Technology Readiness, but It Has Not Explained the
Current Readiness of Fuel Cycle Technologies or the Estimated Time and
Cost Associated with Their Development:
DOE's R&D plan states that it is necessary to assess the readiness of
technologies associated with the nuclear fuel cycles in selecting fuel
cycle options for further review. According to the R&D plan, DOE is to
assess the status of the technologies associated with the different
nuclear fuel cycle options being considered and estimate the time and
costs of further developing them. The plan also states that DOE will:
* continue to evaluate the technological readiness of fuel cycle
options and determine the readiness of these options to differentiate
among them and to focus development in order to meet the R&D plan's
schedules and goals;
* give priority to R&D on technologies associated with the modified
open fuel cycle because of their relative immaturity compared with the
technologies associated with once-through and full recycle fuel
cycles; and:
* seek to raise the readiness of the technologies associated with the
modified open fuel cycle category in order to make meaningful
comparisons among the three nuclear fuel cycle categories, and to
further narrow the range of fuel cycle options.
These proposed actions would help advance DOE's goals for developing
nuclear fuel cycle options, but neither the R&D plan nor the pilot
screening process describes the current readiness of the fuel cycle
options and associated technologies under consideration, the estimated
time or cost for further developing them, or relate readiness to
schedules and goals. As we have reported, assessing the readiness of
technology is a best practice to help control schedule and costs.
[Footnote 18] It may be premature to assess technology readiness
levels for all the fuel cycle options and associated technologies
under consideration, however, without this information, DOE has not
made clear the magnitude of the effort necessary to develop these
technologies nor the costs associated with doing so.
DOE's R&D Plan Identifies the Need to Collaborate with the Nuclear
Industry but Does Not Include a Long-term Collaboration Strategy:
DOE's R&D plan identifies the importance of collaborating with the
nuclear industry--the ultimate user of any nuclear fuel cycle and
associated technologies that are developed--and the department has
made some efforts to obtain industry advice, but the plan does not
include a long-term strategy for how to conduct such collaboration.
According to the R&D plan, the federal government is responsible for
managing disposal of spent nuclear fuel, but the nuclear industry will
be the likely user of any technologies developed by the government to
better manage this fuel. Hence, the plan states that the nuclear
industry is a necessary partner in DOE's R&D effort, both to suggest
specific challenges to solve and to offer perspective on proposed
nuclear fuel cycle options.
As of June 2011, DOE had obtained industry views by contracting with
six consortia of nuclear industry companies. In December 2009, DOE
issued a request for advice and assistance from companies with
experience in advancing nuclear energy concepts through the licensing
and deployment of full-scale production facilities.[Footnote 19] The
request also stated that DOE was seeking studies, analyses,
evaluations, and engineering and technical services from the nuclear
industry. DOE received proposals from 14 nuclear industry groups and
contracted with 6 of them in June 2010 through a 5-year, $30 million
contract--known as an Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity (ID/
IQ) agreement. Through the ID/IQ agreement, DOE can issue a request
for information, known as a task order, from one or more of the
industry groups, and each group may choose to participate or not in
each task order. As of June 2011, DOE had issued five task orders, for
a total of $5 million paid to the industry groups.[Footnote 20] Four
of the industry groups participated in the first task order by, among
other things, providing input through conference calls, face-to-face
meetings, attending an annual meeting, and submitting reports that
identified technical areas for nuclear fuel cycle R&D efforts. The
face-to-face meetings have included workshops DOE held from July 2010
through January 2011, according to DOE documents we reviewed. These
workshops focused on different aspects of DOE's eight technical R&D
areas. Representatives from industry groups told us that the ID/IQ
agreements are an effective mechanism to solicit their input on these
R&D areas in the short-term. However, some of these representatives
told us that it was unclear how DOE is using the information the
industry provided during workshops and in response to task orders.
Moreover, DOE officials did not provide information to us on how it
was using industry input.
Nevertheless, DOE's R&D plan does not include a long-term strategy for
working with the nuclear industry to ensure acceptance and use the
technologies DOE develops. The plan has established milestones through
2050, but its current contracts with nuclear industry partners end in
May 2012, with an option to extend the contracts until May 2015. The
R&D plan provides no detail on how DOE might collaborate with the
nuclear industry beyond these dates. According to our analysis of the
report on the pilot screening process, DOE stated that, as it
continues to develop its methodology for selecting nuclear fuel
cycles, it will need to consider evaluation criteria not addressed in
the initial screening study that will be important in selecting a
nuclear fuel cycle or cycles that industry finds acceptable.
Specifically, the report identified the need for broader stakeholder
participation, including the nuclear industry, in refining the
evaluation criteria, particularly those associated with economics,
such as the life-cycle costs of a nuclear fuel cycle.
According to the peer review panel for the initial screening process
study, the evaluation criteria did not include any incentives for
industry to buy or operate facilities that incorporate any of the fuel
cycles that DOE may select and demonstrate. The peer review panel also
noted that such incentives for industry are essential. In January
2011, two of the industry groups that participated in the first task
order suggested a number of improvements to the collaborative process,
including involving industry in periodic peer reviews of DOE's R&D
efforts and having industry work with the department to determine the
point where DOE funding for technology development should stop and
industry funding should begin. DOE officials explained to us that they
issued operating procedures in May 2011 that more specifically
identified how DOE will collaborate with the nuclear industry under
the ID/IQ agreement. These officials explained that the operating
procedures are intended to ensure that any new task orders issued
under the current ID/IQ agreement will indicate how industry input
will help DOE achieve the milestones in its R&D plan. Nevertheless,
DOE R&D plan does not provide a strategy for how it will collaborate
with the nuclear industry that addresses industry concerns for its
involvement over the long term. Without a collaboration strategy to
sustain the nuclear industry as a partner in its R&D, DOE may be at
risk of developing fuel cycle options that industry does not use. As
we have previously reported, collaborative efforts can be enhanced and
sustained by engaging in key practices, including (1) defining and
articulating a common outcome; (2) establishing mutually reinforcing
or joint strategies; (3) identifying and addressing needs by
leveraging resources; (4) agreeing on roles and responsibilities; (5)
establishing compatible policies, procedures, and other means to
operate across agency boundaries; (6) developing mechanisms to
monitor, evaluate, and report on results; and (7) reinforcing
accountability for collaborative efforts through performance
management systems. While our previous report focused on collaboration
among federal agencies, we believe that the key practices identified
are relevant to the need for improved collaboration between DOE and
the nuclear industry in developing nuclear fuel cycles and associated
technologies.[Footnote 21] We note, however, that DOE has an
independent role in deciding on a nuclear fuel cycle and associated
technologies that best serve U.S. interests in minimizing waste and
reducing proliferation and terrorism risks.
DOE's R&D Plan Acknowledges the Need for International Collaboration
but Does Not Specify How DOE Will Use Existing Collaborative
Agreements with Other Countries:
According to DOE's R&D plan, DOE recognizes that international R&D
collaboration, at least in the short term, is essential for meeting
its objective of developing sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. The plan
states that these collaborations may help accelerate technology
development and temporarily fill some of the gaps--such as the absence
of fast reactors--in the United States' current nuclear R&D
infrastructure.[Footnote 22] While the plan does not discuss in detail
any mechanisms for fostering international collaborative R&D efforts
to develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles, DOE officials told us
about the collaborative agreements they currently have with other
countries. The principal forums that DOE uses for its international
R&D collaboration are the following:
* Multilateral agreements. DOE, along with other agencies, represents
the United States as a member country in several multilateral nuclear
energy forums, including IAEA, International Framework for Nuclear
Energy Cooperation (IFNEC), Generation IV International Forum, and the
Nuclear Energy Agency.[Footnote 23] For example, the Generation IV
International Forum--chartered in 2000 with nine member countries and
supported by the Nuclear Energy Agency--allows countries to
collaborate on testing the feasibility and performance of advanced
nuclear systems in order to make them available for industrial
deployment by 2030. In this forum, France, Japan, and the United
States, are collaborating on two of six prototype nuclear reactor
designs, the very-high temperature reactor and the sodium-cooled fast
reactor.
* Trilateral agreement. France, Japan, and the United States are in
the process of establishing a trilateral agreement to develop
reprocessing technologies for spent nuclear fuel. Under this
agreement, DOE will be allowed access to a French facility to
fabricate new forms of nuclear fuel and a Japanese nuclear reactor
test facility to recycle spent nuclear fuel. One objective of the
agreement is to demonstrate full recycling of nuclear fuel in a fast
reactor in Japan. According to a DOE official, this trilateral
agreement has been under negotiation for more than 2 years.
* Bilateral agreements. DOE's International Nuclear Energy Research
Initiative, established in 2001, is a mechanism for entering into
bilateral agreements on nuclear energy R&D. DOE enters into these
bilateral agreements to (1) develop advanced concepts and scientific
breakthroughs in nuclear energy technology, (2) promote collaboration
with international agencies and research organizations to improve the
development of nuclear energy, and (3) promote and maintain a nuclear
science and engineering infrastructure in order to resolve future
technical challenges. The goal is to achieve a 50-50 matching
contribution from each partner country. DOE currently has active
agreements with Canada, France, and the Republic of Korea, as well as
with the European Union.
* Action plans. DOE has begun to develop action plans to jointly
conduct R&D on and share knowledge about key nuclear facilities and
technologies. DOE currently has action plans with China, India, Japan,
and Russia. These plans identify mutually agreed areas of cooperation
and lay out a schedule of events, such as workshops, milestones, and
deliverables. For example, the United States has agreed to work with
each of these countries separately on developing fast reactors.
These forums that DOE uses for international R&D collaboration
indicate that DOE has many opportunities to cooperate with other
countries to develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. For example,
DOE's R&D plan states that it will share research results and leverage
U.S. R&D investments with France, Japan, and Russia that are also
conducting work on transmutation technologies, which involve using
fast reactors to transform highly radioactive material into a less
radioactive material. The R&D plan further states that DOE has
modeling and simulation capabilities that could be shared with other
countries, and that it envisions restarting a nuclear reactor test
facility at the Idaho National Laboratory in 5 to 6 years, which could
also be shared with other countries.[Footnote 24]
However, DOE's R&D plan does not fully explain how it will take
advantage of these collaborative agreements to advance its efforts to
select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. This is
particularly important because these collaborations could help the
United States use research facilities in other countries, such as
reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities, as well as advanced
reactors. According to DOE's R&D plan, DOE does not currently have
adequate nuclear research facilities for developing advanced fuel
cycle technologies, and DOE officials estimated that it would take 10
to 15 years to design and construct them. As a result, DOE envisions
building two major research facilities--a fast test reactor and a fuel
cycle laboratory to test advanced reprocessing and nuclear fuel
technologies.[Footnote 25] DOE has already requested through its ID/IQ
agreement preliminary conceptual planning for a nuclear fuel cycle
research laboratory. However, as table 2 shows, some of these
facilities are already available or are being constructed in other
countries, and DOE's plan does not indicate how it might use any of
these facilities to further its R&D effort. DOE officials agreed that
using the resources of some of these facilities in other countries
would help DOE in meeting its R&D objectives, but these officials also
explained that obtaining access to these facilities is limited and
could constrain ability to conduct R&D in a timely manner.
Table 2: Nuclear Facilities in the United States and in Countries That
Have Collaborative Agreements with the United States:
Country: China;
Fast reactors: Operating: 1[B];
Fast reactors: Under construction: 0;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 16;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: France;
Fast reactors: Operating: 1;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 0;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 11;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 1;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 1;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 2;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: India;
Fast reactors: Operating: 1[B];
Fast reactors: Under construction: 1;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 6;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: Japan;
Fast reactors: Operating: 2;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 0;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 15;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 1;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 1.
Country: Russia;
Fast reactors: Operating: 2;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 1;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 47;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 1;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 1;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 1;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: Republic of Korea;
Fast reactors: Operating: 0;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 0;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 2;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: United States;
Fast reactors: Operating: 0;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 0;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 41;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 0;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 1;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 1[C];
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 0;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 0.
Country: Total;
Fast reactors: Operating: 7;
Fast reactors: Under construction: 2;
Research and test reactors[A]: Operating: 138;
Research and test reactors[A]: Under construction: 2;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Operating: 3;
Fuel fabrication facilities: Under construction: 2;
Reprocessing facilities: Operating: 3;
Reprocessing facilities: Under construction: 1.
Source: Idaho National Laboratory.
Note: The United Kingdom does not have a collaborative agreement with
the United States. It does have two operating test/research reactors,
two operating fuel fabrication facilities and one under construction,
and two operating reprocessing facilities.
[A] Research and test reactors--also called "non-power" reactors--are
nuclear reactors primarily used for research, training, and
development. These reactors contribute to almost every field of
science including physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology,
archeology, and environmental sciences.
[B] This reactor is also included in the total for operating research
and test reactors.
[C] This facility is the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, which
is currently under construction at DOE's Savannah River site in South
Carolina.
[End of table]
DOE's R&D plan also does not address how the department will decide
between building nuclear research facilities, such as a fast test
reactor, and using its existing international collaborative agreements
to gain access to planned or existing facilities in other countries.
International R&D collaboration has broad support from the Electric
Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Agency, and the Blue
Ribbon Commission as a way to share the cost of designing and building
these facilities. Without specifying how it will use its existing
collaborative agreements with other countries, NE may miss
opportunities to use the expertise and R&D facilities in these other
countries to more efficiently and effectively meet its R&D objectives.
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy Is Working to Understand and Minimize
Proliferation and Terrorism Risks but Faces Challenges and Has Not
Formally Coordinated with NNSA:
As its R&D plan details, DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy has efforts
underway to better understand and minimize nuclear proliferation and
terrorism risks and recognizes the challenges associated with these
efforts. However, the office has not developed a formal coordination
mechanism with NNSA, which is necessary to avoid overlap and
duplication in minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks.
DOE Has Undertaken Three Efforts to Better Understand and Minimize
Risks of Proliferation and Terrorism, but Faces Challenges:
In accordance with its R&D plan, DOE has described three efforts
underway to better understand and minimize the proliferation and
terrorism risks associated with nuclear fuel cycles: (1) developing
and validating a methodology to assess these risks, (2) safeguarding
nuclear material, and (3) participating in IFNEC to advance U.S.
interests in minimizing these risks.[Footnote 26]
Developing and Validating a Methodology to Assess Proliferation and
Terrorism Risks:
According to DOE officials, the department is in the early stages of
developing a methodology to examine the proliferation and terrorism
risks associated with different types of nuclear fuel cycles as part
of its effort to select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel
cycles. DOE held a workshop in February 2010 with subject matter
experts to obtain their views on what information the department would
need to assess nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks related to
nuclear fuel cycle options. DOE also held a second workshop in July
2010 that some of the same experts attended, as well as
representatives from the nuclear industry and academia to obtain views
on its R&D plan. According to DOE officials, its R&D efforts will
expand on the internationally developed methodology to assess
proliferation and terrorism risks.[Footnote 27]
In its R&D plan, DOE identified four challenges to developing its own
methodology to assess the proliferation and terrorism risks of
different nuclear fuel cycles:
* Quantifying the intent and shifting motivations of adversaries. The
plan stated that it is difficult to develop mathematical methods for
quantifying human behavior to predict how adversaries may choose to
act. It is also difficult to predict when they might modify their
choices based on the actions and behavior of the defenders of the
facilities chosen for attack and the outcome of events in relation to
these incidents.
* Addressing threats that change over time. The plan stated that
threats or perceived threats can change drastically over time because
of new information or other factors. When the time horizon of a risk
assessment takes place over many decades, anticipating future threats
presents major challenges.
* Analyzing the potential effects of policy and technology changes.
Because it will take decades to select and demonstrate nuclear fuel
cycles, the plan stated that it will be challenging to analyze
policies and technical measures that can change in ways that are
difficult to predict.
* Estimating risks from technologies that have not yet been developed
or deployed. The plan stated that when new technologies are involved,
it is difficult to assess the problems these technologies may present
before they become operational.
DOE officials told us that once the department develops a risk
assessment methodology, it will need to validate it. DOE's R&D plan
recognizes three challenges for validating the methodology to assess
proliferation and terrorism risks:
* Lack of empirical data on the vulnerabilities of nuclear facilities.
To address this challenge, the plan states that DOE will gather
empirical data from various sources, such as the Department of
Homeland Security and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
* Lack of information on nuclear fuel cycle options. There is
currently insufficient information on all nuclear fuel cycle options
to validate their risks through an assessment methodology, according
to a national laboratory expert. To overcome this challenge, DOE plans
to apply its risk assessment methodology to theoretical nuclear fuel
cycles that might be deployed under a set of assumed conditions.
* Impediments to obtaining external peer review of the methodology. To
help validate the risk assessment methodology, the plan states that
DOE will conduct an external peer review. According to DOE officials,
the methodology is likely to rely in part on classified data, but few
outside, independent experts in such methodologies have the security
clearance that would be needed to review the methodology. To address
this challenge, according to a DOE official, DOE has contracted with
the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an external peer review of
the methodology under secure conditions, which is estimated to be
completed by the end of 2012.
Recognizing these challenges, DOE officials told us that any resulting
risk assessment methodology should not be the sole basis for assessing
whether a particular nuclear fuel cycle would reduce proliferation and
terrorism risks.
Safeguarding Nuclear Material:
According to the R&D plan, DOE faces two primary challenges in its
efforts to help safeguard nuclear material. First, it faces the
challenge of developing new concepts for nuclear fuels and nuclear
reactors that are cost effective and reliable while producing
radioactive materials that are less attractive for proliferation and
terrorism. To address this challenge, DOE plans to integrate safety,
safeguards, and security features into the design of the nuclear fuel
cycle technologies, starting from the earliest conceptual design
stages.[Footnote 28] Second, DOE faces the challenge of designing
equipment that can measure and monitor nuclear materials as they move
through the different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. Current
technology relies on a time-consuming approach of taking samples of
nuclear materials, including lab analysis, which does not allow real-
time tracking of the material to prevent diversion, theft or loss of
nuclear material. To address this challenge, DOE is continuing to
develop technologies to track nuclear material, in close coordination
with NNSA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, IAEA, and other
international partners.
Participating in IFNEC to Advance Nonproliferation Goals:
According to DOE's R&D plan, DOE participates in the following three
IFNEC efforts to reduce opportunities for nuclear proliferation and
terrorism:
* Nuclear fuel services. Under this effort, countries with
reprocessing capabilities could receive spent nuclear fuel from
utilities in other countries, reprocess it, fabricate new nuclear
fuel, and send this new fuel back to these utilities.
* Comprehensive nuclear fuel services. Comprehensive nuclear fuel
services is an approach in which commercially based nuclear fuel cycle
services--including fuel leasing, regional or internationally managed
interim storage, and disposition of used fuel with the supplier or a
third party--are made available on a global basis to countries meeting
their nonproliferation responsibilities.
* Participation in the nonproliferation regime. Under this effort, DOE
provides leadership and technical contributions in international
forums associated with nonproliferation.
To date, DOE officials have attended IFNEC meetings in France, Italy,
Japan, and Jordan. Thus far, several reports have been issued at the
IFNEC working group and ministerial levels, including statements by
IFNEC member countries and working group reports on issues such as
radioactive waste management and the role of the nuclear industry in
ensuring nuclear fuel cycle services.[Footnote 29]
The Office of Nuclear Energy faces a challenge in supporting U.S.
nonproliferation goals through its participation in IFNEC, because the
office does not have lead responsibility for developing, implementing,
and supporting international frameworks and institutions. NNSA and
other federal agencies have lead responsibility; thus, the office has
limited ability to develop, implement, and support international
frameworks.
Office of Nuclear Energy Has Not Established a Formal Mechanism for
Coordinating with NNSA on Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism Issues
to Avoid Overlap and Duplication:
The Office of Nuclear Energy has taken some actions to address
proliferation issues as it moves forward in its efforts to select and
demonstrate nuclear fuel cycle options, but the office has not
developed a formal mechanism for coordinating its efforts to minimize
proliferation and terrorism risks with NNSA, which has lead
responsibility within DOE for nonproliferation. According to DOE's R&D
plan, the Office of Nuclear Energy is responsible for providing
technical expertise and leadership on nuclear technology to the U.S.
agencies with overall responsibility for nuclear nonproliferation
policy.[Footnote 30] According to Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA
officials, R&D efforts on understanding and minimizing proliferation
and terrorism risks should not be separate from and must support
NNSA's work in trying to meet U.S. nonproliferation goals.
The Office of Nuclear Energy has a number of ways in which it
informally coordinating with NNSA. According to DOE's R&D plans, the
Office of Nuclear Energy has informally worked with NNSA largely
through long-standing relationships among researchers and managers
that cut across organizational boundaries. According to NNSA
officials, this informal coordination is in part possible because the
Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA use the same subject matter experts
at the national laboratories. However, these officials noted that when
officials and subject matter experts retire or leave either
organization, this informal sharing of information may not continue.
Office of Nuclear Energy officials explained that their office has not
established a formal coordination mechanism with NNSA because the
office has traditionally focused on domestic nuclear issues and NNSA
focuses on the international aspects of nuclear proliferation and
terrorism risks. However, DOE's R&D plan now includes work that has
international implications because the nuclear fuel cycles and
associated technologies under consideration by the Office of Nuclear
Energy might be adopted by other countries. DOE's R&D plan discusses
the need to complete formal coordination mechanisms, such as a
memorandum of understanding or coordination committees between the
Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA to coordinate work and to avoid
overlap. Office of Nuclear Energy officials told us that they have
formed some coordinating groups with NNSA and have begun to discuss
developing a memorandum of understanding, but that they have not
decided on how best to integrate their R&D with NNSA's
nonproliferation efforts. As we have reported, defining organizational
roles and responsibilities in formal mechanisms can help agencies
strengthen their commitment to work collaboratively by clarifying who
will lead or participate in which activities and how decisions will be
made.[Footnote 31]
French and British Experiences in Reprocessing and Recycling Can
Provide Insights for U.S. Decision Making:
France and the United Kingdom's experiences in developing and
operating reprocessing and recycling infrastructures can provide some
insights into the decisions DOE may need to make in selecting and
demonstrating nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies.
Reprocessing and Recycling Reduces the Need to Mine Uranium. According
to French government officials, reprocessing and recycling plutonium
and uranium reduces the need to mine uranium. The amount of uranium
needed for nuclear fuel in a reactor depends on how much MOX fuel and
reprocessed uranium fuel is used in the nuclear reactors that are
licensed for these fuels. According to a 2010 French government
report, the current reprocessing and recycling approach in France
reduces the amount of uranium needed for nuclear fuel by up to about
17 percent. This report included input from AREVA--the French company
responsible for managing all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle,
including constructing and operating reprocessing and recycling
facilities--and Electricité de France (EdF)--the utility responsible
for operating most of the country's commercial nuclear power reactors.
The estimate in the report assumes that the 22 French reactors that
can use MOX fuel and the 4 French reactors that can use reprocessed
uranium fuel use the maximum amount of these fuels--up to 30 percent
MOX fuel and 100 percent reprocessed uranium fuel in these reactors.
[Footnote 32] According to French government officials, if France were
to recycle all of the reprocessed uranium and plutonium it generates
from reprocessing, it would further reduce the amount of uranium
needed for nuclear fuel by up to almost 25 percent. According to
United Kingdom officials, because the country has had limited
experience with using recycled nuclear fuels, it has achieved only
minimal savings of uranium from its reprocessing and recycling
activities.
Recycling consumes some of the plutonium contained in spent nuclear
fuel. According to French government officials, recycling results in a
net reduction of plutonium. MOX fuel contains about 8.5 percent
plutonium, and spent MOX fuel contains about 6 percent plutonium,
according to these officials. These officials estimated that, in their
current use of MOX fuel, the annual overall quantity of plutonium
generated is at least 2.5 metric tons lower than if the same reactors
had used conventional enriched uranium fuel. However, reactors that
have been licensed to use MOX fuel can only use up to 30 percent of
this fuel in a reactor per refueling; the remaining 70 percent or more
of the fuel is conventional enriched uranium fuel, which generates
plutonium. According to AREVA officials, the decrease of plutonium in
MOX fuel is offset by the increase in plutonium resulting from the use
of conventional enriched uranium fuel in the reactor. In addition,
because France only uses as much plutonium as it creates each year,
recycling of plutonium in France does not reduce its current inventory
of 35 metric tons of nondefense plutonium. According to AREVA
officials, the new generation of nuclear reactors they are developing
are designed to use a higher percentage of MOX fuel and thus more
plutonium would be consumed and, in turn, less would be generated.
The conditions for plutonium use are different in the United Kingdom
because it does not recycle plutonium. As a result, the United
Kingdom's reprocessing of domestic spent nuclear fuel has resulted in
an inventory of 84 metric tons of nondefense plutonium. The United
Kingdom plans to store most of this plutonium until 2120, and it
currently considers this plutonium as having no value as an asset.
However, the disposition of the United Kingdom's inventory is under
review. As part of this ongoing review, the United Kingdom government
reported that the review is to include an assessment of whether the
plutonium should be reused as MOX fuel in a new generation of nuclear
reactors. The United Kingdom government also reported that recycling
plutonium as MOX fuel consumes roughly one-third of the plutonium and
significantly degrades the remaining plutonium, making it less
attractive for use in a nuclear weapon but more expensive to reprocess
a second time.[Footnote 33] In addition, according to an official from
the United Kingdom's Royal Society, the amount of time during which
plutonium is maintained in a separated form should be minimized by
converting it to MOX fuel as soon as it is feasible to do so, and
nuclear reactors should be identified in advance to ensure the use of
this MOX fuel.[Footnote 34]
Reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel is likely to reduce the
space needed for a geologic repository, but the size of the reduction
is uncertain. Reprocessing and recycling is likely to reduce the space
needed for a repository compared with the once-through nuclear fuel
cycle because uranium and plutonium are reused rather than disposed
of, according to French government officials. On the other hand,
subject matter experts we spoke with said that the reduction in the
amount of repository space stemming from reprocessing and recycling
would depend on how much of the radioactive materials that France
considers reusable might ultimately require disposal in a geologic
repository. The materials considered reusable are primarily spent MOX
fuel, spent reprocessed uranium fuel, and plutonium. Because the
disposition of radioactive materials considered reusable is uncertain,
a 2006 French law requires, among other things, that the owners of
this material, primarily AREVA and EdF, study how they would manage it
if it were later defined as waste.[Footnote 35] According to the law,
this may occur if the technologies envisioned for reusing these
materials, primarily fast reactors, do not perform as anticipated or
if the current reprocessing and recycling processes are abandoned. In
discussions leading up to this law, in 2005, the French National
Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ANDRA) prepared three scenarios
for determining the size of the planned geologic repository.[Footnote
36] In the first scenario, ANDRA estimated that the planned repository
would need about 2 square miles under current plans to dispose of the
reprocessing waste that requires geological disposal. In the second
scenario, ANDRA estimated that the repository would need about 3.5
square miles if spent MOX fuel and spent reprocessed uranium fuel were
also disposed of. In the third scenario, ANDRA estimated that the
repository would have needed about 5.4 square miles if France had
never reprocessed spent fuel and instead had always relied on a once-
through nuclear fuel cycle. However, these calculations do not include
waste stemming from the reprocessing and recycling of spent MOX fuel
and spent reprocessed uranium fuel. A figure showing the radioactive
materials generated by reprocessing and recycling of 1000 metric tons
of spent nuclear fuel in France is provided in appendix IV.
The United Kingdom's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is
planning to develop a geologic repository for the 470,000 cubic meters
of high-and intermediate-level wastes resulting from the operation of
its current nuclear reactors.[Footnote 37] However, the effect of
reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel on the amount of space
needed for a geologic repository is under review, including whether to
dispose of radioactive materials that are being stored but that are
potentially reusable, primarily plutonium. In addition, NDA has
estimated that it would need to increase the geologic repository
currently being planned by about 50 percent to accommodate the spent
nuclear fuel generated from nine planned nuclear reactors, if this
spent fuel is not reprocessed and recycled into MOX fuel. In contrast,
if the spent nuclear fuel from the planned reactors is reprocessed and
MOX fuel is fabricated and used in these reactors, NDA anticipates
that the geologic repository would only need to increase by 15
percent. However, this latter estimate does not consider the need to
dispose of the spent MOX fuel from these proposed new reactors.
Collocating reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities would better
minimize proliferation and terrorism risks. French government and
AREVA officials point to decades of safe and secure operations, but
they said that they recognize that, if they were to develop the
recycling infrastructure today, they would, among other things,
collocate the reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities to avoid
transporting plutonium for a distance of about 600 miles, as they do
now. They also noted that they would rely on reprocessing technology
designed to keep plutonium in a mixture with uranium that could be
used for nuclear fuel, rather than their current process of separating
the plutonium from the uranium and other radioactive materials.
According to United Kingdom officials, their current security
arrangements provide sufficient protection against the diversion of
materials and against terrorism. These arrangements include
collocating reprocessing and recycling facilities, as well as
subjecting these facilities to stringent security requirements using a
multibarrier approach, such as robust storage facilities and armed
guards. They also told us that they favored additional efforts to
reduce the attractiveness of radioactive materials, particularly
plutonium, resulting from reprocessing and recycling. See appendixes
III and V for detailed information on these countries' experiences
with reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel.
Conclusions:
To its credit, DOE has taken a systematic approach to planning for the
complex, scientifically challenging process of identifying and
selecting sustainable nuclear fuel cycle options and associated
technologies by 2020 and demonstrating them by 2050. We are concerned,
however, that DOE's initial steps will not be followed by actions
needed to sustain its plans over this long period to achieve this
goal. In particular, DOE's R&D plan states that the department will
continue to evaluate the technological readiness of nuclear fuel cycle
options to differentiate among them and to focus development on those
that will help meet the R&D plan's schedules and goals. However,
neither the R&D plan nor the pilot screening process describe the
current readiness of all critical technologies associated with the
nuclear fuel cycles or the estimated time and costs for further
developing them, or relate technology readiness to R&D schedules and
goals. Such estimates are critical to understanding the magnitude of
the R&D effort and to measuring progress in developing these
technologies. In addition, DOE does not have a long-term strategy for
collaborating with the nuclear industry that clarifies the
government's and industry's roles and responsibilities. Without such a
strategy, DOE cannot be assured that the nuclear industry will accept
and use the technologies that it develops. Furthermore, DOE has not
specified in its R&D plan how it will use its collaborative agreements
with other countries to advance its R&D efforts to develop sustainable
nuclear fuel cycles over the longer term. As a result, DOE may miss
opportunities to use facilities and expertise in other countries to
more efficiently and effectively meet its R&D goals. Finally, DOE has
not developed a formal mechanism for coordinating its efforts to
develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles with NNSA, which has lead
responsibility in DOE for minimizing proliferation and terrorism
risks--a critical factor in selecting new fuel cycles. DOE officials
said they recognize the need for coordination with NNSA and have done
so informally. They also said they have begun to discuss developing a
memorandum of understanding with NNSA. As we have reported, defining
organizational roles and responsibilities in formal mechanisms can
help agencies strengthen their commitments to work collaboratively by
clarifying who will lead or participate in which activities and how
decisions will be made. Formal mechanisms are also important to
sustaining coordination over the long term and avoiding overlap and
duplication.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
For the Office of Nuclear Energy to reach its goal of selecting
sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies by 2020
and demonstrating them by 2050, we recommend that the Secretary of
Energy direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office Nuclear Energy to
take the following actions:
(1) Revise the R&D plan to:
* include the current readiness levels of the technologies associated
with the fuel cycle options being considered and the estimated time
and cost for developing these technologies in relationship to the R&D
plan's schedules and goals,
* include a strategy for sustaining long-term collaboration with the
nuclear industry, including a formal mechanism that clarifies the role
industry will have at critical points in selecting fuel cycle options
and associated technologies, and:
* specify how DOE will use collaborative agreements with other
countries to advance its R&D efforts and use available facilities and
expertise in these other countries to more efficiently and effectively
meet its R&D goals.
(2) Complete a memorandum of understanding with NNSA to help ensure
that DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA coordinate their work to
avoid overlap and duplication in their efforts to minimize
proliferation and terrorism risks.
Agency Comments and Our Response:
We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Energy for
review and comment. In written comments on a draft of this report, the
department generally agreed with the first three of our
recommendations and did not rule out the future use of a formal
memorandum of understanding between its Office of Nuclear Energy and
NNSA, as we also recommended.
Specifically, with respect to our recommendation to include the
current readiness levels of the technologies associated with the fuel
cycle options being considered, DOE stated that it would incorporate
lessons learned from its assessment of technology maturity as part of
an initial screening of fuel cycle options in fiscal year 2010 to a
follow-on screening study planned for fiscal year 2013. DOE stated
that it would then incorporate technology readiness information
developed and evaluated from the fiscal year 2013 screening into
revisions to its R&D plan. Furthermore, DOE also stated that it will
pay greater attention to defining technology readiness and the costs
and time needed to improve that readiness for specific candidate
technologies. Regarding our recommendation to include a strategy for
sustaining long-term collaboration with the nuclear industry, DOE
indicated that it would clarify its intentions for the nuclear
industry's engagement over the long term as part of its revisions to
its R&D plan. With respect to our recommendation to specify how it
will use collaborative agreements with other countries to advance its
R&D efforts, DOE acknowledged that its R&D plan does not provide
details regarding approaches for how international collaboration will
advance its R&D efforts but stated that these details are available in
other documents. We recognize that the information on international
collaboration may be available in other documents, but we continue to
believe that DOE needs to incorporate this information as part of its
revisions to its R&D plan to provide a comprehensive roadmap to ensure
that it will take advantage of opportunities to use facilities and
expertise in other countries to more efficiently and effectively meet
its R&D goals.
DOE did not rule out the future use of a formal memorandum of
understanding between its Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA to help
ensure that they coordinate to avoid overlap and duplication in their
efforts to minimize proliferation and terrorism risks. DOE provided
examples of how the two offices are collaborating on nonproliferation
issues and stated that while it did consider using a memorandum of
understanding to formalize coordination, existing efforts already
promote significant teamwork. Our report noted these ongoing
collaborations, but we continue to believe that a memorandum of
understanding would help ensure that the efforts between the two
organizations do not lead to overlap and duplication. Our report noted
that defining organizational roles and responsibilities in formal
mechanisms can help agencies strengthen their commitment to work
collaboratively by clarifying who will lead or participate in which
activities and how decisions will be made.
DOE also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as
appropriate. DOE's letter and our response are in appendix VI.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the
Secretary of Energy, appropriate congressional committees, and other
interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no
charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions
to this report are listed in appendix VII.
Signed by:
Gene Aloise:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
We reviewed the (1) approach the Department of Energy (DOE) is taking
to select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and
associated technologies; (2) efforts DOE is making to understand and
minimize nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks associated with
nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies; and (3) experiences
of France and the United Kingdom in reprocessing and recycling spent
nuclear fuel that may be useful to the United States in selecting
sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies.
To address the first objective, to review the approach DOE is taking
to select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and
associated technologies, we analyzed pertinent DOE documents,
including DOE's "roadmap" for developing advanced recycling
technologies and draft and final versions of the plans implementing
the roadmap. We refer to the roadmap and the implementation plans
collectively as DOE's research and development (R&D) plan.[Footnote
38] We also interviewed DOE program managers from the nuclear fuel
cycle R&D programs associated with the development and implementation
of the nuclear fuel cycle objective in the roadmap. We also visited
DOE's Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is the lead laboratory
for DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, to conduct semi-structured
interviews with managing officials to assess the status of fuel cycle
R&D. We also obtained and reviewed documents prepared by INL on
nuclear fuel cycle research.
In addition, to obtain the nuclear industry's views on collaboration
with DOE and the usefulness of DOE's R&D plan for them, we interviewed
representatives from the six industry groups and analyzed documents we
obtained from four of these groups. The six industry groups (with
their partners) are the following:
* AREVA group, which includes AREVA Federal Services, LLC; Battelle
Memorial Institute, Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Group, Inc.;
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited; URS Corporation; and Duke Energy
Corporation.
* CH2M Hill, Inc.
* ENERCON group, which includes Enercon Services, Inc.; Entergy
Corporation; S.M. Stoller Corporation; and ANATECH Corporation.
* EnergySolutions group, which includes EnergySolutions, LLC; Atomic
Energy of Canada Limited; Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.; Nuclear Fuel
Services, Inc. (a subsidiary of Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services
Group, Inc.); United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory; Exelon
Nuclear Partners (a Division of Exelon Corporation); International
Nuclear Services Limited; Sargent and Lundy, LLC; Talisman
International, LLC; Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc.; Columbia Basin
Consulting Group, LLC; North Wind, Inc.; and TerranearPMC, LLC.
* General Electric Hitachi group, which includes GE Hitachi Nuclear
Energy Americas, LLC; Ernst and Young Global Limited; Fluor
Corporation; Lockheed Martin Corporation; and E.I. du Pont de Nemours
and Company.
* Shaw group, which includes Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure,
Inc.; Westinghouse Solutions, Inc.; and Exelon Corporation,
Longenecker and Associates, Inc.
We also conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from
these groups as well as with representatives from two major U.S.
utilities--the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy--of the 26
operating in the United States to obtain their views on their
collaboration with DOE and the usefulness of DOE's plan to them. We
selected these two utilities because they were two companies with
which DOE has discussed buying mixed oxide (MOX) fuel from DOE's Mixed
Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is currently under construction
at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina. We also conducted semi-
structured interviews with organizations that represent the nuclear
industry--the Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the
nuclear energy and technology industry, and the Electric Power
Research Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that
provides R&D relating to the generation, delivery, and use of
electricity.
We also conducted semi-structured interviews with five subject matter
experts who could provide a range of views on reprocessing and
recycling spent nuclear fuel and on DOE's R&D plan. Because we used a
nonprobability sample of experts to speak with and we did not attempt
to reach consensus among these experts, the information we obtained
from these experts cannot be generalized to all experts, but the
interviews provided us with information on the perspectives of various
experts. To select these experts, we reviewed presentations given
before the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, and
from these presentations identified experts who had presented relevant
information; we also reviewed the literature to identify subject
matter experts who had conducted extensive research on relevant issues
and interviewed some of these individuals; and we interviewed experts
who were recommended by other experts and government officials. The
experts we interviewed for this and the other objectives included
academics, retired government officials, ex-industry officials, and
other individuals with extensive knowledge of these issues. We also
reviewed testimonies and presentations delivered before the Blue
Ribbon Commission and reports issued by the commission.
To analyze DOE's R&D work with international partners and obtain their
views on DOE's international collaborations as DOE developed its
implementation plans, we spoke with government officials from France
and the United Kingdom on their R&D collaboration with DOE, and
participated in an international conference organized by the OECD-NEA
and sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the
European Commission. This conference, held in November 2010, focused
on, among other things, information exchanges on scientific and
strategic and policy developments in the field of reprocessing and
recycling.
To address the second objective, to review the efforts DOE is taking
to better understand and minimize nuclear proliferation and terrorism
risks with nuclear fuel cycles and their associated technologies, we
obtained and reviewed pertinent documents from the Office of Nuclear
Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and INL.
We also interviewed cognizant Office of Nuclear Energy officials, as
well as officials from NNSA and the Department of State, which are
lead agencies for proliferation and terrorism risks. We also conducted
semi-structured interviews with experts at INL and spoke with two
experts from Brookhaven and Los Alamos National Laboratories, who are
involved in understanding and minimizing proliferation and terrorism
risks. Because we used a nonprobability sample of 20 experts at
national laboratories to speak with, the information we obtained from
these experts cannot be generalized to all experts at the national
laboratories, but the interviews provided us with information on the
perspectives of various experts from the national laboratories. We
also examined DOE's participation in the International Framework for
Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC). Moreover, we participated in DOE's
Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology program workshop, held in July
2010, to observe how the Office of Nuclear Energy interacts with
national laboratory officials, NNSA, industry, and subject-matter
experts on proliferation and terrorism issues.
We also obtained documents from, and conducted semi-structured
interviews with, representatives from the six nuclear industry groups
to obtain their views on their collaboration with DOE for
understanding and minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks. We
also spoke with government representatives from other countries to
understand their concerns about proliferation and terrorism risks. In
addition, we interviewed officials from the French atomic energy
commission, the Commissariat ál'Énergie Atomique (CEA), who
participate in IFNEC to learn more about their perception of IFNEC's
role in the international nonproliferation arena.
In addition, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with
10 subject matter experts in the proliferation and terrorism field. We
interviewed these experts to assess information received from DOE and
the national laboratories. However, we did not attempt to reach
consensus among these experts. Moreover, while in the United Kingdom,
we conducted a semi-structured interview with four experts from the
United Kingdom's Royal Society who are working on a report to assess
proliferation and terrorism challenges for the future of nuclear power
and management of spent nuclear fuel. Furthermore, during the
international OECD-NEA conference, we obtained other countries' views
on proliferation matters.
To address the third objective, to review the experiences of France
and the United Kingdom in reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear
fuel that may be useful to the United States in selecting nuclear fuel
cycles and associated technologies, we reviewed relevant documents
about their nuclear energy systems, and visited these countries to
observe their experiences; obtain additional documents; and interview
government, nuclear industry, and utility representatives who oversee
and manage the reprocessing and recycling infrastructures. We also
interviewed six subject matter experts in the United States who are
familiar with the reprocessing and recycling process in these
countries. We prepared appendixes III and IV (for France), and V (for
the United Kingdom) reflecting these countries' experiences, which we
sent to their government officials to review for technical accuracy.
We made changes, as appropriate, to incorporate their comments, but we
did not independently verify statements of law provided by these
reviewers. We selected France and the United Kingdom because they are
among the few countries that have decades of experience in
reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel.
In France, we spoke with officials from government agencies, such as
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the General Directorate for
Energy and Climate Change, which is part of both the Ministry of
Industry and New Technologies and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable
Development, Transport and Housing. We also conducted semi-structured
interviews with officials from the French nuclear operator, AREVA, and
from the French utility, Electricité de France (EdF) to learn about
their operating experiences and outcomes of reprocessing and recycling.
We also visited the reprocessing facilities at AREVA's La Hague site
and the MOX fuel fabrication facility at AREVA's Marcoule site and
conducted semi-structured interviews with these facilities' managers.
To observe how France conducts its R&D on advanced technologies, we
visited CEA's R&D facilities at Marcoule and AREVA's pilot testing
facility at La Hague, where we spoke with researchers and engineers.
We also interviewed two subject-matter experts on the French
reprocessing and recycling experience.
We also reviewed data from and conducted interviews with AREVA and EdF
officials to obtain information on the reprocessing and recycling
processes in France and the radioactive material that is generated by
these processes. We also consulted with experts from the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory on our analysis of the information obtained from
the French officials. In addition, we asked four subject-matter
experts to provide us with an additional perspective on waste
generated by reprocessing and recycling in France. We prepared a
separate appendix illustrating the facilities and processes involved
in reprocessing and recycling and the radioactive material generated
by these processes, which we sent to industry officials to review for
technical accuracy (see appendix IV). We made changes, as appropriate,
to incorporate their comments.
In the United Kingdom, we spoke with officials from the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority and the Department of Energy and Climate
Change. To observe reprocessing and recycling operations, we visited
the United Kingdom facilities at Sellafield--the Thermal Oxide
Reprocessing Plant and the Sellafield MOX fuel fabrication facilities-
-and spoke with facility managers. To observe how the United Kingdom
conducts its R&D work on advanced technologies, we visited its
National Nuclear Laboratory, and we spoke with laboratory officials
and researchers. We also interviewed seven experts--three subject-
matter experts and four members from the United Kingdom's Royal
Society--who are knowledgeable about the United Kingdom's reprocessing
and recycling experiences.
In addition, we interviewed officials from international organizations
such as OECD-NEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World
Nuclear Association to obtain an international perspective on
reprocessing and recycling.
We conducted this performance audit from May 2010 through October
2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Significant R&D Challenges in Selecting and Demonstrating
Nuclear Fuel Cycles:
In its R&D plan, DOE has divided its R&D for selecting and
demonstrating nuclear fuel cycles into eight technical areas and
identified associated challenges. The following discusses some of the
significant challenges the plan identified in each area.
Systems analysis. This area refers to the development of computer
modeling and simulation to improve understanding of the
interdependences between fuel cycle subsystems and associated
technologies. According to DOE's R&D plan, there are two potential
challenges: (1) rapidly create and deploy verified and validated
modeling and simulation capabilities essential for the design,
implementation, and operation of future nuclear energy systems with
the goal of improving U.S. energy security and (2) use systems
analysis to integrate R&D results from across the eight technical
areas.
Fuel resources. DOE will conduct research in this area to better
understand the availability of uranium and other nuclear fuel
materials to help inform decisions on choosing nuclear fuel cycles.
According to DOE's R&D plan, the potential challenge to this work is
the ability to extract uranium from unconventional sources, such as
seawater, including gathering reliable data on the feasibility and
cost of this extraction.
Fuel development. This area focuses on research to examine a variety
of nuclear fuels to support the three nuclear fuel cycle categories.
[Footnote 39] DOE identified potential challenges associated with this
research, including (1) significantly increasing the performance of
nuclear fuels by extending the time for fissioning and (2) fabricating
fuel with minimal waste generation.
Separations. This technical area focuses on developing new separations
(i.e., reprocessing) methods that enable the recycling and/or
transmutation of key nuclear fuel constituents (e.g., actinides).
These methods must be economical (i.e., involve minimal processing);
minimize waste streams and volumes; and enable the effective
safeguarding of fissile material. DOE identified several challenges
associated with this technical area, such as capturing off-gases
resulting from reprocessing and developing separation processes that
are more proliferation resistant for minor actinides.
Waste forms. This technical area focuses on developing new
technologies for mixing high-level radioactive waste with different
materials, such as ceramics, glass, glass-ceramics, and metals, to
derive a waste form that can maintain stability and durability under
long-term exposure to high levels of radiation, among other things,
and to understand their performance in complex geologic settings.
Among the challenges DOE identified are significantly reducing the
volume of high-and low-level wastes and improving the durability of
waste forms containing the most radiotoxic (and nonradioactive toxic)
components to allow for a wide range of disposal options.
Storage and disposal. In this area, DOE plans to conduct research to
identify storage and disposal alternatives and develop technology to
enable the storage, transportation, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel
and wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles.
Challenges DOE identified in its R&D plan include providing a sound
technical basis for absolute confidence in the safety and security of
long-term storage, transportation, and permanent disposal of used
nuclear fuel and wastes from the nuclear energy enterprise and
integrating waste management with no or minimal radioactive releases
from storage and disposal systems.
Transmutation technologies. This technical area focuses on developing
systems including nuclear reactors that would transmute radioactive
materials recovered from spent fuel to significantly reduce their
radioactivity. According to DOE's R&D plan, the challenges presented
in this area include developing transmutation options that meet a
broad range of fuel cycle strategies and developing transmutation
options that efficiently generate electricity at a cost similar to
that of light-water reactors.
Materials, protection, control, and accountability technology. This
research area focuses on developing new processes and technologies to
account for and protect nuclear materials from proliferation and
terrorism risks. According to DOE's R&D plan, challenges include
developing online, real-time, continuous accountability instruments
and techniques that significantly improve the ability to inventory
fissile materials in domestic fuel cycle systems in order to detect
diversion and prevent misuse.
[End of section]
Appendix III: The French Experience in Reprocessing and Recycling
Spent Nuclear Fuel:
According to French government and nuclear energy officials and
subject matter experts, France has decades of experience with
reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. This appendix discusses
(1) France's nuclear energy industry and the relevant oversight
entities and (2) France's experiences with reprocessing and recycling
facilities.
Oversight of Nuclear Energy:
The primary government body involved in France's nuclear power
infrastructure and policy is its General Directorate for Energy and
Climate Change, which is part of both the Ministry of Industry and New
Technologies and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development,
Transport and Housing. France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy
Commission, known as the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux
Energies Alternatives (CEA), is responsible for, among other things,
all areas of nuclear technology research. In addition, the French
company, AREVA, is responsible for managing all stages of the nuclear
fuel cycle, including constructing and operating reprocessing and
recycling facilities.[Footnote 40] The French nuclear utility, known
as Electricité de France (EdF), is responsible for operating the
country's commercial nuclear power reactors. AREVA and EdF were
previously wholly owned by the French government but now operate as
private companies. However, the French government holds a more than 80
percent ownership share of each company. The French national
radioactive waste management agency, known as the Agence Nationale
pour la Gestion des Déchets Radioactifs (ANDRA), is constituted as a
public, industrial, and commercial establishment responsible for
conducting all operations relating to the long-term management of
radioactive waste. Nuclear safety issues are regulated by the Nuclear
Safety Authority.
Reprocessing and Recycling Facilities and Operating Experiences:
According to documents we reviewed, French government and nuclear
industry officials, and subject matter experts, France's nuclear power
infrastructure produces about 75 percent of its electricity needs.
This infrastructure includes facilities to reprocess and recycle spent
nuclear fuel. The discussion below describes these facilities--
including (1) reprocessing facilities, (2) a uranium reenrichment
facility, (3) fuel fabrication facilities, and (4) reactors that use
recycled nuclear fuel--and their operating experiences.
Reprocessing Facilities and Operating Experiences:
Under CEA, France has developed reprocessing facilities in two
locations. In 1953, CEA built its first reprocessing plant at one of
its research sites--Marcoule--in southeastern France. This facility,
the Usine de Plutonium (UP) 1, used for military purposes, was shut
down in 1997. In 1967, CEA built its first reprocessing facility for
commercial spent nuclear fuel--UP2-400, which was capable of
processing up to 400 metric tons annually of spent nuclear fuel--at La
Hague, a site along the Normandy coast. This reprocessing facility was
shut down in 2004 after it had reprocessed about 28,000 metric tons of
spent nuclear fuel. The UP2-400 had contracts with neighboring
European countries and Japan for reprocessing services for the spent
fuel produced from their commercial nuclear reactors.[Footnote 41] In
addition, in 1981, to meet the growing demand for reprocessing from
nuclear utilities in other countries, primarily Germany and Japan,
AREVA was authorized to construct other reprocessing plants at La
Hague.[Footnote 42] It began operations in 1990, at the UP3, which can
reprocess up to 900 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel annually, and in
1994, at the UP2-800, which can reprocess up to 800 metric tons
annually. Nuclear utilities in other countries substantially paid for
the construction of the UP3 facility, and EdF paid for the
construction of UP2-800 facility.
In the past few years, the UP3 and UP2-800 facilities have been
reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from EdF and from utilities in other
countries at an average of about 1,050 metric tons annually, or about
65 percent of the combined capability of these facilities, according
to AREVA officials. Until 2009, EdF shipped about 850 metric tons of
its spent nuclear fuel to La Hague each year for reprocessing--more
than half of the about 1,250 metric tons that EdF reactors produce
annually. AREVA officials told us that it is their policy to limit the
amount of spent nuclear fuel that they reprocess annually to the
amount of plutonium needed to fabricate enough MOX fuel to meet the
needs of their utility customers, including EdF and nuclear utilities
in other countries. These officials explained that this reprocessing
strategy prevents creation of surplus plutonium. Importantly, this
strategy does not allow France to reduce its inventory of plutonium,
which is about 35 metric tons of domestic, nondefense plutonium.
[Footnote 43] In 2010, EdF increased shipments of spent nuclear fuel
to AREVA for reprocessing from 850 metric tons to 1,050 metric tons
because it needed more MOX fuel for an expanded number of reactors
that are capable of using this fuel. AREVA officials told us they
expect to reprocess 1,500 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel per year
by 2015, given anticipated demands from EdF and nuclear utilities in
other countries.
Uranium Reenrichment Facility and Operating Experience:
France reenriches some of the uranium that is obtained through
reprocessing (reprocessed uranium) to fabricate reprocessed uranium
fuel. This fuel is used by EdF and by nuclear utilities in other
countries that send their spent nuclear fuel to France for
reprocessing. Before 2004, most of the reenrichment was carried out by
the Urenco Company in the Netherlands. Between 2004 and 2010, the
reenrichment was conducted at the JSC Siberian Chemical Combine in
Seversk, Russia: EdF sent about 500 metric tons of reprocessed uranium
to this facility. French government officials explained that it was
necessary to send its reprocessed uranium to these facilities in other
countries because the reenrichment process requires a technology that
does not currently exist in France. However, these officials explained
that AREVA is currently constructing a reenrichment line at its newly
started George Besse II enrichment facility, located at its Tricastin
site in southeastern France, which will use a technology that will
allow AREVA to reenrich reprocessed uranium. AREVA plans to begin
operating this line in 2012.
Fuel Fabrication Facilities and Operating Experiences:
France has operated two MOX fuel fabrication facilities and one
reprocessed uranium fuel fabrication facility. In 1989, CEA started
fabricating MOX fuel for light-water reactors at its facility in
Cadarache, located in southeastern France, for EdF and then for
nuclear utilities in Germany and Switzerland.[Footnote 44] According
to French government officials, this facility was shut down in 2003
because the cost of upgrading the facility to meet new safety
standards, especially seismic safety standards, could not be
justified. In 1995, AREVA constructed a new MOX fuel fabrication
facility, Melox, at the Marcoule site. Initially, in 1997, the Melox
facility was licensed for a capacity to fabricate 100 metric tons of
MOX per year; in 2003, the capacity was increased to 145 metric tons
per year; and in 2007, it was increased to 195 metric tons per year,
although it is not yet operating at this level. According to AREVA
officials, the capacity was first increased to 145 metric tons because
of the increased demand for MOX fuel from nuclear utilities in other
countries, primarily Germany and Japan, and increased again to 195
metric tons to meet the anticipated demand for MOX fuel, primarily
from EdF.
To fabricate reprocessed uranium fuel, AREVA operates the Franco-
Belgian Fuel Fabrication facility in southeastern France. The
production line devoted to fabricating this fuel began operations in
1993; it has the capacity to fabricate about 150 metric tons annually
and has been producing about 80 metric tons annually.
Reactors Using Recycled Fuel and Operating Experiences:
According to French government officials we spoke with, the
government, through CEA, AREVA, and EdF, initially intended to use the
uranium and plutonium resulting from reprocessing as fuel for a fast
reactor program.[Footnote 45] Development of fast reactors began in
the early 1960s, and two such reactors were built and operated. The
233 megawatt (MW) Phénix fast reactor operated between 1974 and 2009
and the 1,200 MW Super-Phénix operated between 1986 and 1998.[Footnote
46] These reactors were used to test nuclear fuels, including fuel
fabricated from the uranium and plutonium that resulted from
reprocessing. However, according to subject matter experts in France,
by the late 1980s, financial, technical, and administrative barriers
halted the deployment of fast reactors. Without the fast reactor
option, EdF decided to modify some of its 900 MW nuclear reactors to
accept MOX fuel, and the first reactor licensed to use this fuel began
operating in 1987. Currently, 21 of EdF's 58 nuclear reactors have
been licensed to use MOX fuel, another reactor has been licensed to
use MOX fuel but has not yet used it, and EdF is seeking approval to
use MOX fuel in two more reactors.[Footnote 47] With respect to
reprocessed uranium fuel, 4 of EdF's 58 reactors--each generating 900
MW--are licensed to use this fuel. EdF began testing the use of this
fuel in 1987 and started using it full time in 1994. According to an
EdF official, EdF has enough reenriched reprocessed uranium to
fabricate fuel for use in the four reactors that use it for the next
20 years. However, the official explained that EdF will continue to
have AREVA reenrich reprocessed uranium because EdF views this
material as a strategic resource that EdF could use in additional
reactors if the price of conventional enriched uranium fuel increases
enough to make it economically feasible to do so.
In January 2006, the President of France announced a policy to develop
a prototype commercial fast reactor by 2020, a policy that was
subsequently enacted into law. As part of this new effort, CEA will
begin designing a fast reactor for demonstration by 2020 and
commercial deployment by 2035.[Footnote 48] According to CEA
officials, the reactor is intended to make better use of uranium
resources, including the inventory of depleted and reprocessed
uranium; test the capability of the reactor to consume radioactive
material, including plutonium; and demonstrate the usefulness of this
reactor for commercial deployment. According to these officials, the
uranium and plutonium resulting from the reprocessing of spent MOX
fuel is expected to be used as the primary fuel for this reactor, and
additional reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities would likely
be needed to support this program.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: The French Reprocessing and Recycling Process and the
Resulting Radioactive Material:
Figure 2 illustrates the process used in France to reprocess and
recycle 1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and the radioactive
material that is generated from this process. The figure is in two
parts: page 52 shows the steps involved in reprocessing and recycling
spent fuel, and page 53 shows the radioactive materials resulting from
these steps and France's consideration of these materials as reusable
or as waste.
As shown on page 52, facility 6, the reprocessing facility, produces,
among other radioactive materials, reprocessed uranium and plutonium,
and these two materials follow separate recycling pathways for use as
fuel in nuclear reactors; the arrows pointing to page 53 show the
resulting radioactive material generated by these pathways. As the
figure shows, the reprocessed uranium is sent through facility 7 for
re-enrichment; through facility 8, where it is fabricated into
reprocessed uranium fuel; and to facility 10, where it is used as fuel
in a reactor licensed to use the fuel. The plutonium is sent through
facility 9, where it is fabricated into MOX fuel; and to facility 11,
where it is used as fuel in a reactor licensed to use the fuel. As
shown on page 53, reprocessing and recycling generate a variety of
radioactive material that may or may not be reused.
Figure 2: Reprocessing and Recycling Process in France and the
Resulting Radioactive Materials:
[Refer to PDF for image: process illustration]
Front end of the nuclear fuel cycle:
Flow of the nuclear fuel cycle:
1. Extraction.
2. Conversion.
3. Enrichment.
4. Fuel fabrication.
5. Reactor: Uranium fuel ~1,000 T.
6. Reprocessing: Spent nuclear fuel[A] ~1,000 T; (MOX scrap[E] flows
between step 6 and step 9); (Plutonium ~10 T flows to step 9);
* Off gases[B] ~7.6 T;
* Water effluents[C] ~0.3 T;
Reprocessed uranium[D] ~570 T flows to step 7;
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France:
* Reprocessed uranium ~380 T (Intermediate heat generated by
radioactive decay);
Considered waste by France:
* Vitrified HLW[K] ~124m3 or ~247 T; (High heat generated by
radioactive decay);
* Process waste[L]/Technological waste[M]; HLW & ILW-LL; (Intermediate
heat generated by radioactive decay);
* Technological waste (LLW)[N]; (Low heat generated by radioactive
decay);
7. Enrichment:
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France:
* Depleted reprocessed uranium[O] ~494 T (Intermediate heat generated
by radioactive decay);
Considered waste by France:
* Process waste[L]/Technological waste[M]; HLW & ILW-LL; (Intermediate
heat generated by radioactive decay);
* Technological waste (LLW)[N]; (Low heat generated by radioactive
decay);
8. Reprocessed uranium fuel fabrication[F]:
Reprocessed uranium fuel[G] ~76 T: flows to step 10;
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France: none;
Considered waste by France:
* Process waste[L]/Technological waste[M]; HLW & ILW-LL; (Intermediate
heat generated by radioactive decay);
* Technological waste (LLW)[N]; (Low heat generated by radioactive
decay);
9. MOX fuel fabrication: (MOX scrap[E] flows between step 6 and step
9); (Plutonium ~10 T flows from step 6);
Reprocessed uranium fuel[G] ~76 T: flows through step 9 to step 10;
MOX fuel[H] ~117 T flows through step 10 to step 11;
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France: none;
Considered waste by France:
* Process waste[L]/Technological waste[M]; HLW & ILW-LL; (Intermediate
heat generated by radioactive decay);
* Technological waste (LLW)[N]; (Low heat generated by radioactive
decay);
10. Reactor[I]: Receives reprocessed uranium fuel[G] ~76 T from step 8;
MOX fuel[H] ~117 T flows through step 10 to step 11;
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France:
* Spent reprocessed uranium fuel ~76 T (High heat generated by
radioactive decay);
Considered waste by France:
* Process waste[L]/Technological waste[M]; HLW & ILW-LL; (Intermediate
heat generated by radioactive decay);
- Process waste: ~125m3 or ~250 T;
- Technological waste: ~190m3 or ~380 T;
* Technological waste (LLW)[N]; (Low heat generated by radioactive
decay); ~1,300m3;
11. Reactor[J]: Receives MOX fuel[H] ~117 T from step 9 through step
10;
Radioactive materials created during this process from each
facility:
Considered reusable by France:
* Spent MOX fuel ~117 T;
Considered waste by France: none.
Sources: GAO analysis of information provided by AREVA, EdF and Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
Notes:
1. The numbers in figure 2 are based on reprocessing and recycling
1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. This fuel is assumed to have
initially been enriched to 4.2 percent of uranium-235, produced 55
gigawatt days of energy per ton of uranium, and been stored in water
pools for 4 years prior to reprocessing.
2. France relies on a radioactive waste classification system that
divides radioactive waste into four categories--high-level,
intermediate-level, low-level, and very low-level--that represent the
degree of radioactivity that this waste generates. These categories
are subdivided into three categories based on the length of time the
radioactivity of the waste will threaten human health and the
environment--long-lived (more than 30 years), short-lived (less than
30 years), and very-short-lived (less than 100 days). The figure does
not show very low-level very short-lived waste. France operates
surface facilities to dispose of very low-level short-lived waste, and
low-and intermediate-level short-lived radioactive waste. France is
investigating geologic disposal options for high-level waste and low-
and intermediate-level long-lived waste and subsurface disposal
options for low-level long-lived waste. (In general, U.S. radioactive
waste classes A, B, and 75 percent of class C waste would be
classified in France as low-and intermediate-level short-lived waste,
and the other 25 percent of the U.S. class C waste and all of the U.S.
greater-than class C waste would be classified in France as low-and
intermediate-level long-lived waste. The U.S. high-level waste would
also be classified in France as high-level waste.)
3. The weight of the initial 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the
figure includes only the weight of the fuel components and not the
weight of the structural material used to contain the fuel pellets.
The fuel components of the spent fuel are uranium, plutonium, minor
actinides, and fission products--the sum of these components is equal
to the weight of the uranium in the initial fuel. The weight of the
structural material is included in the figure as part of the process
waste resulting from reprocessing. Similarly, the weight of material
shown in the figure considered by France to be reusable includes only
the weight of the fuel components and not the weight of the structural
material used to contain the fuel. In contrast, the weight of the
radioactive material considered by France to be waste includes the
weight of the radioactive material, including the weight of the fuel
components, the structural material used to contain the fuel, and the
storage containers. AREVA did not provide us with information on the
weight of the radioactive material in these containers separately from
the weight of the containers.
4. The figure does not include radioactive materials that would be
generated from the decontamination and decommissioning of reprocessing
and recycling facilities nor the amounts of stored radioactive
materials that have accumulated over the years from reprocessing and
recycling.
5. AREVA and EdF noted that the reprocessing and recycling facilities
and resulting radioactive materials are subject to, and meet, all
safety, security, and environmental regulations.
Technical notes for the reprocessing and recycling process in France:
[A] Spent nuclear fuel: France currently reprocesses and recycles all
of the spent nuclear fuel it produces. It does not reprocess and
recycle the spent MOX fuel and spent reprocessed uranium fuel coming
out of this process.
[B] Off-gases: Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel generates gases that
include the radioactive elements carbon-14, iodine-129, krypton-85,
and tritium. Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel
generates about 7.6 metric tons of volatile fission products that are
released to the atmosphere as gases. Approximately 99.7 percent of
these fission products are not radioactive. The other 0.3 percent of
these fission products contains approximately 210,000 terabecquerels
of radioactivity, primarily from the fission product krypton-85. (A
terabecquerels is a trillion becquerels--a bequerel is a unit of
measure of radioactivity.)
[C] Water effluents: Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel generates water
effluents that include the radioactive elements carbon-14, iodine-129,
and tritium. Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel
generates about 0.3 metric tons of volatile fission products that are
released to the sea. Approximately 77 percent of this material
contains about 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity, primarily from
iodine-129 and tritium.
[D] Reprocessed uranium: Reprocessed uranium contains some uranium
isotopes, such as uranium-232 and uranium-236, and trace amounts of
other radioactive elements, including plutonium, fission products, and
minor actinides. AREVA did not provide information on the amount of
this trace material.
[E] MOX scrap: This material consists of ceramic powder that is a
byproduct of the fabrication process (e.g., grinding dust) and also of
MOX fuel pellets that did not meet the needed technical or quality
specifications--materials that are collectively referred to as MOX
scrap. Of the approximately 12 metric tons of MOX scrap generated from
reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel, about 95 percent is of
high enough quality that it is recycled at the fuel fabrication
facility, while the remaining 5 percent is sent back for reuse at the
reprocessing facility.
[F] Reprocessed uranium fuel fabrication: This facility only generates
very low-level very short-lived radioactive material.
[G] Reprocessed uranium fuel: Reprocessed uranium fuel comprises 100
percent enriched reprocessed uranium.
[H] MOX fuel: MOX fuel compromises about 8.5 percent plutonium and
91.5 percent depleted uranium (depleted uranium is a byproduct of the
initial enrichment of uranium).
[I] Reactors loaded with reprocessed uranium fuel: These are
conventional nuclear reactors that do not require any modifications to
use this fuel, and they can use up to 100 percent of this fuel for
operation. Currently 4 of France's 58 nuclear reactors are licensed to
use this fuel.
[J] Reactors loaded with MOX fuel: These are conventional nuclear
reactors that require no or minor modifications to use this fuel and
can use up to 30 percent of this fuel for operation; the remainder of
the fuel is conventional enriched uranium fuel. Currently, 21 of
France's 58 nuclear reactors are licensed to use MOX fuel.
Technical notes for the radioactive material generated from
reprocessing and recycling in France:
[K] Vitrified high-level waste (HLW): Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons
of spent nuclear fuel generates 35 metric tons of HLW waste and 213
metric tons of packaging material, such as the glass in which the
radioactive material is encased and the steel storage containers
holding the vitrified HLW.
[L] Process waste (HLW and intermediate-level waste, long-lived, (ILW-
LL)): This waste includes the cladding material, end-fittings, and
other structural material used to contain the nuclear fuel pellets.
This material is compacted and packaged into steel containers similar
to those used to contain vitrified HLW. The weight of the material
shown in the figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste
generated from reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the
container. AREVA did not provide separate information on the weight of
the radioactive waste and of the container.
[M] Technological waste (HLW and ILW-LL): Technological waste consists
of waste generated by plant operations (e.g., filters, pumps)
contaminated with radioactive elements. This waste is compacted or
cemented into different storage containers. The weight of the material
shown in the figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste
generated from reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the
container. AREVA provided the volume of this material but did not
provide separate information on the weight of the radioactive waste
and of the container.
[N] Technological waste (low-level waste): Technological waste
typically consists of contaminated items, such as protective clothing,
maintenance waste, and failed equipment. The weight of the material
shown in the figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste
generated from reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the
container. AREVA did not provide separate information on the weight of
the radioactive waste and of the container.
[O] Depleted reprocessed uranium: Depleted reprocessed uranium is
radioactive material generated by the reenrichment process. It
contains trace amounts of other radioactive elements, including
plutonium, fission products, and minor actinides from the reprocessed
uranium that was reenriched. AREVA did not provide information on the
amount of this trace material.
[End of figure]
[End of section]
Appendix V: The United Kingdom Experience in Reprocessing and
Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel:
According to United Kingdom government and nuclear energy officials
and subject matter experts, the United Kingdom has decades of
experience with reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. This
appendix discusses (1) the United Kingdom's nuclear energy industry
and the relevant oversight entities, and (2) the United Kingdom's
reprocessing and recycling facilities and operating experiences.
Oversight of Nuclear Energy:
According to United Kingdom documents, government officials, and
subject matter experts, the United Kingdom's nuclear power
infrastructure produces about 18 percent of the nation's electricity
needs. This infrastructure includes facilities to reprocess and
recycle spent nuclear fuel. The primary United Kingdom government
agency involved in overseeing the nuclear power infrastructure and
policy is the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which was
created in 2008 to bring together energy policy and climate change
mitigation policy.
Through the Energy Act of 2004 the government created the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a government-owned organization with
responsibilities for decommissioning and cleaning up the facilities
and waste from the United Kingdom's nuclear power infrastructure.
[Footnote 49] To support its operations, NDA uses revenues generated
from the United Kingdom's reprocessing and recycling facilities--in
Sellafield, Cumbria, in the northwestern part of England--and from its
Magnox nuclear reactors.[Footnote 50] NDA also funds research across
the United Kingdom's nuclear complex in support of its mission. This
includes funding of research at another government-owned organization,
the National Nuclear Laboratory,[Footnote 51] which conducts research
and development on new reactors, the operations of nuclear reactors
and reprocessing facilities, and decommissioning and environmental
cleanup. In 2009, the French utility company, EdF, acquired British
Energy and took over the operation of the United Kingdom's 14 advanced
gas-cooled nuclear reactors (AGR) and a light-water reactor.
The future of nuclear power in the United Kingdom was outlined in a
government white paper issued in January 2008.[Footnote 52] The report
concluded that it is in the public interest to allow nuclear utility
companies the option to build new nuclear reactors. The report also
concluded that these companies should proceed with the expectation
that spent fuel from any new nuclear reactors will not be reprocessed.
However, the government recognizes that it is up to the utility
companies to decide, in consultation with the government, if it is
commercially feasible to reprocess and recycle spent fuel because the
companies are responsible for their share of the waste management
costs.
Reprocessing and Recycling Facilities and Operating Experiences:
According to documents we reviewed, government officials, and subject
matter experts, the United Kingdom has decades of experience with
reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. The discussion below
describes the configuration and operating experiences of (1) three
reprocessing facilities, (2) a uranium reenrichment facility, (3) four
fuel fabrication facilities, and (4) reactors that use recycled
nuclear fuel.
Reprocessing Facilities:
The United Kingdom has had three reprocessing facilities at its
Sellafield site. It built its first industrial-scale reprocessing
facility after World War II to obtain plutonium for its weapons
program, and this facility was decommissioned in the 1970s. It built
its second--the Magnox reprocessing facility--in 1964 to reprocess
spent nuclear fuel from its Magnox nuclear reactors.[Footnote 53]
Reprocessing this fuel was necessary because its magnesium alloy
cladding proved chemically unstable in storage. The Magnox facility
has a licensed capacity to process up to 1,500 metric tons of spent
Magnox fuel annually. Over its lifetime, the Magnox facility has
reprocessed more than 44,000 metric tons of spent Magnox fuel and
returned over 15,000 metric tons of uranium to the fuel cycle. The
facility is expected to operate until 2016 to complete reprocessing
the spent fuel generated by the four remaining Magnox reactors. NDA
expects to shut down these reactors in 2012.
The third reprocessing facility--the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
(THORP)--was approved for construction in 1978 and began operations in
1994. This facility was initially intended to (1) capitalize on the
projected worldwide expansion of nuclear power and the expected demand
for reprocessing spent fuel services from nuclear utilities in other
countries and (2) reprocess spent nuclear fuel from the country's 14
AGRs to provide plutonium for the fleet of fast reactors that was
expected to be constructed in the United Kingdom.[Footnote 54] It
initially had a licensed capacity to process up to 1,200 metric tons
of spent nuclear fuel annually. According to NDA documents, the
construction costs for THORP were paid for by domestic utility
companies, as well as nuclear utilities in other countries that needed
to reprocess their spent nuclear fuel but did not have the facilities
to do so. Also according to NDA documents, as of 2010, THORP had
reprocessed about 6,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel--about 60
percent, or about 3,700 tons, from nuclear utilities in other
countries, primarily Germany and Japan. THORP is expected to operate
until 2018, when it plans to complete its current reprocessing
contracts for the remaining approximately 500 metric tons of spent
nuclear fuel that still needs reprocessing for nuclear utilities in
other countries and about 2,500 metric tons of spent fuel from the
United Kingdom's AGRs. The last AGR is expected to shut down in 2023,
but its utility owner, EdF, may decide to seek a license extension to
continue operating some AGRs beyond this date. NDA officials explained
that any AGR spent nuclear fuel that is not reprocessed after THORP
closes will be put into long-term storage pending a decision on its
disposal.
THORP has never achieved its licensed capacity because of changes in
market demand for reprocessing services and technical problems.
According to a subject matter expert in the United Kingdom, about the
time that THORP began operations, the original rationale for the
facility--providing reprocessing services and using plutonium for fast
reactor programs--had diminished.[Footnote 55] For example, Germany
had contracted to reprocess a total of 1,500 metric tons of spent
nuclear fuel but reduced this amount by 550 metric tons within months
of THORP's opening. Furthermore, according to subject matter experts,
THORP's technical problems--including equipment failures and accidents
involving acid spills, pipe leaks, and blockages--reduced its capacity
for reprocessing. Most significantly, THORP was shut down for 3 years
beginning in 2005 because of a pipe fracture in a critical portion of
the facility. When THORP restarted operations in 2008, it could no
longer operate at capacity because of the technical problems, and its
capacity was downgraded to 600 metric tons per year. According to NDA
officials, NDA has decided not to invest in THORP to restore operating
capacity to its licensed capacity because of the high cost involved.
Uranium Reenrichment Facility:
The United Kingdom reenriched the uranium generated from the
reprocessing of spent fuel from its Magnox reactors and used the
resulting fuel (reenriched reprocessed uranium fuel) in its AGR
reactors up until about 2004. Reenrichment was conducted by Urenco, at
its facilities in Capenhurst, in the northwestern part of
England.[Footnote 56] According to an NDA official, this facility
reenriched about 16,000 to 20,000 metric tons of reprocessed uranium.
This official explained that this reenrichment began in the 1980s and
ended in 2004 because the low price of uranium made reenriching
reprocessed uranium uneconomic.
Fuel Fabrication Facilities:
The United Kingdom operates or has operated four facilities for
fabricating fuel out of the uranium and plutonium produced by
reprocessing. The following describes their operations:
* The Springfields Works facility, owned and operated by Westinghouse,
located in Preston, England, fabricated reprocessed uranium fuel for
AGR reactors until 2004. According to an NDA official, this facility
produced about 1,000 to 1,650 metric tons of reprocessed uranium fuel.
* Between 1963 and 1988, British Nuclear Fuels operated a MOX fuel
fabrication facility at Sellafield that produced about 20 metric tons
of MOX fuel from plutonium and depleted uranium. According to an NDA
official, this MOX fuel was used in the United Kingdom's fast reactors.
* Between 1993 and 1999, the MOX Demonstration Facility--a small-scale
plant to prove the technology to produce MOX fuel--operated at
Sellafield. This facility had a licensed capacity to produce up to 8
metric tons of MOX fuel annually for nuclear utilities in Germany,
Japan, and Switzerland; however, it produced only 16 metric tons of
MOX fuel during its 6 years of operations. NDA officials attributed
this low output to significant operational delays. For example,
operations were shut down because quality assurance data that
accompanied a MOX fuel shipment to Japanese nuclear utilities were
found to be falsified, making the fuel unacceptable, and the shipment
was returned to the United Kingdom.
* In 2001, the Sellafield MOX Facility began operations to fabricate
MOX fuel for nuclear utilities in other countries, primarily Japan.
The Sellafield MOX Facility is licensed to produce up to 120 metric
tons of MOX fuel annually; it first exported MOX fuel in 2005.
However, according to subject matter experts, this facility
encountered technical problems when it first began operations,
including equipment breakdowns that reduced its output. In 2005, the
facility's capacity was downgraded to up to 40 metric tons per year.
According to a United Kingdom report, in 9 years of operation, this
facility produced 15 metric tons of MOX fuel--a small fraction of its
original target of 560 metric tons over an expected 10 years of
operating life.[Footnote 57] Starting in 2008, NDA subcontracted
fabrication of some MOX fuel to AREVA's Melox facility to complete its
current contracts with nuclear utilities in Japan. In August 2011, NDA
announced that it would close the facility as a result of the
potential delays in orders for MOX fuel from utilities in Japan
following the earthquake in Japan and subsequent events.
Reactors Using Recycled Fuel:
The United Kingdom has made only limited use of reactors using nuclear
fuels that rely on the uranium and plutonium resulting from
reprocessing, as the following describes:
* The United Kingdom had initially intended to recycle the plutonium
derived from reprocessing Magnox and AGR spent nuclear fuel in its
fast reactor program. The United Kingdom operated two fast reactors:
the 14 megawatt (MW) Dounreay fast reactor operated between 1959 and
1977, and the 250 MW prototype fast reactor operated from 1974 through
1994. These reactors were used to test various materials and nuclear
fuels, including fuels fabricated from uranium and plutonium from
reprocessing. However, the United Kingdom decided to abandon its fast
reactor program in 1994. There were a number of factors behind this
decision, according to an NDA official. These factors included low
uranium and natural gas prices for power generation and reduced
interest in nuclear energy following the 1986 Chernobyl accident. In
addition, fast reactor technology proved more difficult to
commercialize than at first anticipated.
* The United Kingdom had used reenriched reprocessed uranium fuel in
its AGRs until 2004 when the low price of uranium made reenriching
reprocessed uranium fuel uneconomic.
* According to NDA officials, aside from the use of MOX fuel in fast
reactors, the United Kingdom has never used MOX fuel in any of its
other reactors. According to these officials, the government has not
ruled out the use of MOX fuel in planned nuclear reactors. In 2008,
the United Kingdom decided to support the building of new nuclear
power reactors, and nuclear utility companies, including EdF, have
come forward with plans to build at least nine new reactors. According
to EdF officials we spoke to in France, these reactors will be
designed to use up to 50 percent MOX fuel. According to an NDA
official, nuclear utilities have an option to come forward with plans
to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from any new reactors and to use MOX
fuel, but no utility company has come forward with plans to do so.
[End of section]
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Energy and GAO's Response:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at
the end of the appendix. (Page references in the letter may differ.)
Department of Energy:
Washington, DC 20585:
September 21, 2011:
Mr. Gene Aloise:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Aloise:
Thank you for providing a draft copy of the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report, "Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options: DOE Needs to Enhance
Planning for Technology Assessment and Collaboration with Industry and
Other Countries," (GAO-11-512). We appreciate your thorough review as
evidenced by the summary of your activities in Appendix I. We are also
pleased that you've acknowledged our systematic approach to planning
for the complex scientifically challenging process that lies ahead.
The draft report recommends that we revise our R&D plans to:
* Include the current readiness levels of the technologies associated
with the fuel cycle options being considered and the estimated time
and cost for developing these technologies in relationship to the R&D
plan's schedules and goals,
* Include a strategy for sustaining long-term collaboration with the
role industry will have at critical points in selecting fuel cycle
options and associated technologies, and,
* Specify how DOE will use collaborative agreements with other
countries to advance its R&D efforts and use available facilities and
expertise in these other countries to more efficiently and effectively
meet its R&D goals.
The draft report also recommends that we complete a memorandum of
understanding with NNSA to help ensure that DOE's Office of Nuclear
Energy and NNSA coordinate their work to avoid overlap and duplication
in their efforts to minimize proliferation and terrorism risks.
We agree that technology assessments and collaboration with industry
and other countries are important elements of the Fuel Cycle Research
and Development program and must be planned well for the program to
succeed. We will continue to refine our planning efforts beyond the
Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap and implementation
plans that your office reviewed. As we do, we will develop more
detailed plans regarding those elements.
Below are more specific comments on each of the major recommendations
in the draft report followed by the clarification of certain factual
representations.
1. Technology Readiness Levels:
Technology maturity was assessed as one of ten criteria as part of the
initial screening of fuel cycle options conducted in FY 2019. This
initial screening was a pilot application of a formal evaluation
process. For the initial screening, a qualitative assessment was made
of the maturity of fuel cycle systems and its components. Lessons
learned from its use will be applied to a follow-on screening planned
for FY 2013. While not yet finalized, one of the areas identified for
improvement is to modify the performance metrics for technology
maturity with an estimate of the cost and time to develop a technology
to a readiness level suitable for transfer to industry.
However, at this stage we are evaluating large numbers of fuel cycle
systems and are not performing detailed evaluation of the readiness of
specific technologies. As we progressively narrow the focus of the
systems that merit attention, greater attention will be placed on
defining the technology readiness and the costs and time to improve
that readiness for specific candidate technologies. Technology
readiness information developed and evaluated as part of the FY 2013
and follow on screening processes will be incorporated into revisions
to our research and development plans.
2. Industry Collaborations:
Collaboration with industry is seen as a vital component of the
program. Indeed, we recognize that industry is the ultimate user of
the technologies developed by the program. Toward that end, the
program has engaged industry via multi-year advice and assistance
contracts that allow them to attend meetings and respond to tasks and
requests of the program as we shape and conduct our R&D. For example,
the industry teams provided significant feedback on the initial
screening of fuel cycle options conducted in FY 2010, including
helping to define options to be evaluated, performance metrics, as
well as reviewing the results of the evaluations. It is intended that
industry participate in a similar manner in future planned screenings
as we progressively narrow the number of options that are considered
for research and development.
Once sufficient research has been conducted to warrant large-scale
demonstration, industry will need to be engaged through partnerships
to conduct the demonstrations. The program will clarify its intention
vis-a-vis industry engagement over the long-term as part of revisions
to its R&D plans.
3. International Collaborations:
DOE has had decade-long relationships with several countries through
international collaborations. These international collaborations have
yielded mutual benefit for all parties involved through various R&D
activities. An example of such collaboration is DOE's Action Plans.
Currently, DOE has Action Plans with China, Japan and Russia.
Action Plans are vehicles that allow both countries to undertake R&D
activities more efficiently by collaborating in key facilities and
technologies unique to each party. The U.S.-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy
Action Plan was signed in April 2007. The U.S.-China Bilateral Civil
Nuclear Energy Cooperative Action Plan was signed in September 2007.
The U.S-Russia Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Action Plan was signed
in March 2010. Examples of action plan R&D areas and working groups
include the following: fast reactor technology, advanced separations
technology (including waste forms), advanced fuels and related
materials, safeguards and physical protection technologies and
modeling and simulation.
All DOE R&D activities are evaluated and revisited regularly and
modified as necessary through the budget process to ensure that the
portfolio reflects past progress, current priorities, and future
opportunities for international collaboration.
The Nuclear Energy R&D Roadmap does not provide details regarding
approaches for how international collaborations will advance DOE's R&D
efforts, but these details are available in other documents. For
example, the U.S. — Russia Civil Nuclear Energy Action Plan identifies
irradiation testing of advanced and innovative fuels and materials in
Russian test reactors as one of the areas of collaboration. In
implementing the action plan, specific approaches for accomplishing
these irradiations have been developed and documented in workshop
reports. As these types of efforts mature and funding requirements are
identified, the potential impact on the need for domestic nuclear
research facilities can be formally assessed.
With respect to IFNEC contributions to advancing nonproliferation
goals through international collaborations, in addition to supporting
U.S. policy objectives through engagement at meetings and development
of topical white papers, examples include: (I) development of a tool
(through NE and NA collaboration) to help countries effectively plan
for needed human resource development (including resources required
for nuclear safeguards) and transfer of this tool to the IAEA for
broader access and (2) providing attention and focus on the important
contributions that nuclear fuel services can provide through
identifying broad interests, key challenges, and approaches that can
be taken multilaterally to enable progress.
4. Cooperation between the Office of Nuclear Energy and the National
Nuclear Security Administration:
Formal interactions at the highest levels between NE and NNSA occur on
a monthly basis between the Assistant Secretary for the Office of
Nuclear Energy and the Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation. Additionally, coordination occurs on a more frequent
and regular basis between the different offices with respect to
ongoing programmatic initiatives and activities. This includes reviews
of R&D plans, the NE R&D Objective 4 Implementation Plan, attendance
at workshops, and interaction of technical staff. Additionally, there
is formal NE-NNSA coordination, for example, that comprises the 10 CFR
Part 810 review process, which has important nonproliferation
implications. While NE and NNSA initially considered an MOU to formalize
coordination, the existing efforts have promoted significant teamwork.
The Nuclear Energy R&D Roadmap and the Objective 4 Implementation Plan
underscore the importance of coordination between NE and NNSA and
these efforts will continue to be supported with approaches documented
in planning documents, as they are updated and refined.
Clarification of Facts:
1. In the first bullet on the highlights page describing the screening
process, the 863 nuclear fuel cycles were grouped into 266 for
further exploration. They were not reduced to 266. Page 16 of the
draft report describes this process more accurately. [See comment 1]
2. Footnote 3 on page 2 should be deleted. It is not necessary for the
point made in the body of the report and is not accurate as written.
DOE has the responsibility to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-
level radioactive waste but is not required under the NWPA to build
and operate a repository. [See comment 2]
3. The last sentence of the first paragraph under the heading Nuclear
Fuel Cycles on page 9 should be deleted because it is inaccurate.
There is not a current U.S. policy to dispose of spent nuclear fuel
and high-level radioactive waste in a geologic repository. [See
comment 3]
4. The statement on page 2 of the draft report states that "other
countries, such as France, rely on a closed fuel cycle to manage their
spent nuclear fuel" is misleading. While it is true that once-through
is the current approach in the U.S. and a closed fuel cycle is being
pursued by other countries, none of these fuel cycles are actually
being used. Until used nuclear fuel is permanently disposed, the U.S.
is not actually using a once-through fuel cycle. Similarly, until
methods for repeated recycle are matured and implemented with the
employment of fast reactors, the closed fuel cycle is not actually
being used or relied on. [Se comment 4]
5. Page 10 of the draft report describes the modified open fuel cycle
as "using limited or no reprocessing or recycling". As stated in the
DOE R&D Plan, the modified open cycle always includes limited
separation steps.
6. Page 23, footnote #23, of the draft report provides misleading
difference between fast reactors and thermal reactors. The fission
process is the same in both fast and thermal reactors, so the neutrons
produced have the same fast energy level. The difference is thermal
reactors use a moderator material to deliberately slow the neutrons to
thermal energy levels, increasing their interaction with the fuel
material. Fast reactors do not include this moderator material, and
fast neutrons are more likely to collide with fuel isotopes instead of
interacting to create a fission event or a neutron capture event. For
this reason, fast reactors typically require higher fuel enrichment to
maintain a reaction, and are being developed because they are more
capable in transmuting certain long-lived and more hazardous isotopes
to shorter lived or less hazardous isotopes. [See comment 6]
7. Page 23, footnote #24, of the draft report provides misleading
characterization of IFNEC as "a partnership of countries aiming to
improve the proliferation resistance of the nuclear fuel cycle while
guaranteeing access to fuel supplies." IFNEC has a broader aim as an
international forum of 29 member countries, 30 observer countries, and
3 observer organizations, created to explore mutually beneficial
approaches to ensure the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
proceeds in a manner that is efficient and meets high standards of
safety, security and non-proliferation. [See comment 7]
8. Page 24 of the draft report discusses l-NERI collaborations and
then references agreements with multiple countries. The only active 1-
NER1 agreements are with ROK, France, Euratom, and Canada. [See
comment 8]
9. Page 27 of the draft report misstates the focus of DOE efforts to
minimize proliferation and terrorism risks associated with nuclear
fuel cycles ("In accordance with its R&D plan, DOE has three efforts
under way to understand and: (1) developing and validating a
methodology to assess these risks, (2) safeguarding nuclear material,
and (3) participation in IFNEC to advance U.S. interests in minimizing
these risks"). The R&D Objective 4 Implementation Plan describes four
areas: development of intrinsic design features for minimizing
proliferation and terrorism risks; development of next-generation
materials protection, accounting and control; support for the
development of international frameworks and institutions; and
advancing the state of the art for proliferation and terrorism risk
assessment to contribute to risk-informed nuclear energy R&D plans and
priorities. [See comment 9]
10. Page 30 of the draft report limits the description of the
comprehensive nuclear fuel services. The description of comprehensive
nuclear fuel services should be broadened, as follows, so that it is
more consistent with current usage: Comprehensive Nuclear Fuel
Services (CFS) is an approach in which commercially-based nuclear fuel
cycle services--including fuel leasing, regional or internationally-
managed interim storage, and disposition of used fuel with the
supplier or a third party--are made available on a global basis to
countries meeting their nonproliferation responsibilities. The term
"comprehensive" indicates that services may span the entire fuel
cycle, but the flexible and tailored nature of CFS should accommodate
solutions unique to each customer. [See comment 10]
Sincerely,
Signed by:
R. Shane Johnson:
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy:
The following are GAO's comments to the Department of Energy's letter
dated September 21, 2011.
GAO Comments:
1. We modified the report.
2. We deleted the footnote.
3. We deleted the sentence.
4. We did not modify the statement. As our report notes, the
difference between a once-through, or open fuel cycle and a closed
fuel cycle is whether the spent fuel is reused. The United States has
not reused spent fuel; hence we consider the U.S. fuel cycle as once-
through, or open. Because France reuses spent fuel, we consider its
system a closed fuel cycle.
5. We used the language in DOE's implementation plan for the roadmap
to describe the modified open fuel cycle. The implementation plan was
issued 9 months after the roadmap, and the implementation plan was to
elaborate on the information in the roadmap. We suggest that DOE
reconcile the differences in these two documents in explaining the
modified open fuel cycle.
6. We revised this footnote. The revised footnote uses the definition
of a fast reactor from DOE's Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396 (Washington,
D.C.: Office of Nuclear Energy, October 2008).
7. See comment 1.
8. See comment 1.
9. We added a footnote to clarify that we had consolidated objectives
one and two into a general objective of safeguarding nuclear material.
10. See comment 1.
[End of section]
Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Gene Aloise (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individual named above, Daniel Feehan, Assistant
Director; Cristian Ion; Anne Rhodes-Kline; Thomas Laetz; Armetha
Liles; Timothy Persons; Katherine Raheb; Carol Herrnstadt Shulman;
Kiki Theodoropoulos; and Rajneesh Verma made key contributions to this
report.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into
small parts, releasing energy. A commercial nuclear reactor uses this
energy to produce electricity.
[2] Since the publication of a 1957 report by the National Academy of
Sciences, a geologic repository has been considered the safest and
most secure method of isolating spent nuclear fuel and other types of
nuclear waste from humans and the environment.
[3] NNSA, Draft Nonproliferation Impact Assessment for the Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Alternatives (Washington,
D.C.: December 2008).
[4] In 2008, GAO estimated that the cost of a commercial reprocessing
plant would be approximately $44 billion to reprocess 3,000 metric
tons of spent nuclear fuel annually. This estimate was developed by
using DOE's guideline for scaling facilities of different sizes to
extrapolate from the design of an 800 metric ton reprocessing facility
built in Japan that is estimated to have cost almost $20 billion.
[5] GAO, Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: DOE Should Reassess Its
Approach to Designing and Building Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycling
Facilities, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-483]
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 22, 2008).
[6] Pub. L. No. 111-8 (2009).
[7] H.R. Rep. No. 110-921 (2008).
[8] Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, Draft Report
to the Secretary of Energy (Washington, D.C.: July 29, 2011). The
commission includes recognized representatives and experts from a
range of disciplines and with a range of perspectives, and also
includes participation of appropriate federal officials.
[9] DOE, Report to Congress: Nuclear Energy Research and Development
Roadmap (Washington, D.C.: Office of Nuclear Energy, April 2010).
[10] This report does not address the other two objectives in DOE's
R&D plan, which are to (1) develop technologies and other solutions
that can improve the reliability, sustain the safety, and extend the
life of current reactors and (2) develop improvements in the
affordability of new reactors to enable nuclear energy to help meet
the administration's energy security and climate change goals.
[11] These nuclear industry groups are AREVA, CH2M Hill, ENERCON,
EnergySolutions, GE-Hitachi, and Shaw. Each of these groups includes
one or more partners.
[12] The Nuclear Energy Agency assists member countries in maintaining
and further developing the scientific, technological, and legal bases
required for the safe, environmentally friendly and economical use of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It is part of the United
Nations' Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and is
headquartered in Paris, France; IAEA works with member states and
multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure, and peaceful
nuclear technologies and is headquartered in Vienna, Austria; and the
World Nuclear Association, headquartered in London, England, is a
nuclear industry organization that promotes commercial nuclear power.
[13] A neutron is a subatomic particle with no electric charge.
[14] GAO, Nuclear Waste: Disposal Challenges and Lessons Learned from
Yucca Mountain, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-731T]
(Washington, D.C.: June 1, 2011); DOE Nuclear Waste: Better
Information Needed on Waste Storage at DOE Sites as a Result of Yucca
Mountain Shutdown, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-230]
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 23, 2011); and Commercial Nuclear Waste:
Effects of a Termination of the Yucca Mountain Repository Program and
Lessons Learned, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-229]
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8, 2011).
[15] GAO, Department of Energy: Major Construction Projects Need a
Consistent Approach for Assessing Technology Readiness to Help Avoid
Cost Increases and Delays, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-336] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27,
2007).
[16] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-336].
[17] DOE, Managing Design and Construction Using Systems Engineering
for Use with DOE O 413.3A (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2008).
[18] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-336].
[19] DOE issued a request for proposals on the U.S. General Services
Administration's Federal Business Opportunities Web site in December
2009. This Web site is the single governmentwide point-of-entry for
federal government procurement opportunities worth more than $25,000.
[20] The task orders included (1) support to technical campaigns, (2)
technical data to justify full burn up credit in criticality safety
licensing analyses, (3) preliminary scoping study for a fuel research
laboratory, (4) calculation of energy return on investment, and (5)
advanced fuels for future light-water reactors.
[21] GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21,
2005).
[22] A fast reactor is a reactor in which the chain reaction is
sustained by fast neutrons. These higher energy neutrons can fission
all types of uranium and transuranic elements, rather than only the
fissile isotopes split in thermal reactors, such as light-water
reactors. This allows the fast reactor to transmute (consume) the
transuranics. Thus, fast reactors can extract energy from both uranium
and transuranic elements.
[23] DOE represents the United States in IFNEC, which is an
international forum of 29 member countries, 30 observer countries, and
3 observer organizations, to explore mutually beneficial approaches to
ensure that the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes proceeds
in a manner that is efficient and meets high standards of safety,
security, and nonproliferation.
[24] This facility, the transient test reactor, was used to test
nuclear fuels at various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle and was shut
down in 1994.
[25] A fast test reactor is a reactor that generates fast neutrons and
is intended for use in testing of nuclear fuels rather than commercial
power generation.
[26] In its plan, DOE describes four R&D and demonstration areas that
we have consolidated into three efforts.
[27] The international risk assessment methodology was developed in
2006 as part of the Generation IV International Forum. This forum
established an expert group, including officials from DOE's Office of
Nuclear Energy and NNSA, to develop a Proliferation Resistance
Proliferation Prevention risk assessment methodology.
[28] Safeguards include an integrated system of physical protection,
material accounting, and material control measures designed to deter,
prevent, detect, and respond to unauthorized possession, use, or
sabotage of nuclear materials.
[29] IFNEC has two primary working groups, one on infrastructure
development and the other on reliable fuel services.
[30] In addition to NNSA, the Office of Nuclear Energy provides
technical assistance to the Department of State, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, and other organizations.
[31] GAO, National Security: Key Challenges and Solutions to
Strengthen Interagency Collaboration, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-822T] (Washington, D.C.: June 9,
2010); and [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[32] High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear
Security, Avis Sur la Transparence de la Gestion des Matières et des
Déchets Nucléaires Produits aux Différents Stades du Cycle du
Combustible (Paris, France: July 12, 2010).
[33] United Kingdom Department of Energy and Climate Change,
Management of the U.K.'s Plutonium Stocks: A Consultation on the Long-
Term Management of U.K. Owned Separated Civil Plutonium (London,
England: February 2011).
[34] The Royal Society is the United Kingdom's scientific academy. Its
priorities address the future of science in the United Kingdom and
beyond. Its working group on the nuclear fuel cycle and
nonproliferation released preliminary recommendations from its work on
these issues in March 2011, and published its final report October
2011.
[35] Articles of the Planning Act N. 2006-739 of 28 June 2006
Concerning the Sustainable Management of Radioactive Materials and
Waste modifying the Environment Code.
[36] These scenarios are based only on the footprint of the disposal
areas needed for the waste and not the total area needed for the
repository.
[37] The NDA is a government-owned organization with responsibilities
for decommissioning and cleaning up the facilities and waste from the
United Kingdom's nuclear power infrastructure.
[38] DOE's R&D plan included four objectives: (1) selecting and
demonstrating sustainable fuel cycles and associated technologies; (2)
understanding and minimizing nuclear proliferation and terrorism
risks; (3) developing technologies and other solutions that can
improve the reliability, sustain the safety, and extend the life of
current reactors; and (4) developing improvements in the affordability
of new reactors to enable nuclear energy to help meet the
administration's energy security and climate change goals. Our review
addressed the first two objectives.
[39] These categories are the once-through fuel cycle, modified open
fuel cycle, and full recycle fuel cycle.
[40] CEA originally established Compagnie générale des matières
nucléaires (COGEMA) in 1976 for these operations, and this
organization was later renamed AREVA. Throughout this appendix we use
the organization's current name.
[41] French law requires the radioactive waste resulting from
reprocessing spent fuel from nuclear utilities in other countries to
be returned to these utilities.
[42] Germany decided to abandon its reprocessing facility in 1989, and
Japan started active testing of its own reprocessing facility in 2006.
[43] In France, the production of plutonium through reprocessing for
military use ceased in 1993--about 5 metric tons of plutonium from
defense activities currently remain in storage along with the 35 tons
from nondefense activities.
[44] This facility had fabricated MOX fuel for France's fast reactors
before 1989.
[45] According to AREVA officials, they expect to use reprocessed
uranium or depleted uranium--a byproduct of the uranium enrichment
process--mixed with plutonium for the fast reactor fuel.
[46] A megawatt is 1 million watts--a watt is a basic unit of
measurement of electrical power.
[47] EdF has 34 reactors that each generates 900 MW of electricity, 20
reactors that generate 1,300 MW, and 4 reactors that generate 1,450 MW.
[48] This reactor--the Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for
Industrial Demonstration--is planned to be a 600 MW prototype fast
reactor.
[49] NDA took over the cleanup and decommissioning liabilities and
contracts for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and fuel
manufacturing of British Nuclear Fuels plc. British Nuclear Fuels was
formed in 1971 from the production arm of the United Kingdom's Atomic
Energy Authority.
[50] Sellafield Ltd, under contract with the NDA, operates the
reprocessing and recycling facilities. Sellafield Ltd, whose parent
body is Nuclear Management Partners, comprises a U.S. company, URS; a
United Kingdom company, Amec; and a French company, AREVA. Magnox Ltd,
under contract with the NDA, operates the United Kingdom's Magnox
reactors. Magnox Ltd is owned by a U.S. company, EnergySolutions, Inc.
[51] The National Nuclear Laboratory is a government-owned,
commercially-operated, customer-funded nuclear technology services
provider operating in six locations in the United Kingdom. The current
contractor is a consortium of Serco, Battelle, and the University of
Manchester.
[52] HM Government, White Paper on Nuclear Power: Meeting the Energy
Challenge (London, England: Department for Business Enterprise &
Regulatory Reform, January 2008).
[53] The United Kingdom had 26 Magnox reactors connected to the
electricity grid by 1971. Of these, 22 are shut down and are in
various stages of decommissioning, and 4 continue to operate.
[54] The United Kingdom operates one light-water reactor but does not
reprocess the spent nuclear fuel; instead, it stores the spent fuel
pending disposal in a planned geologic repository.
[55] Forwood, Martin, "The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United
Kingdom, research report of the International Panel on Fissile
Materials" (Princeton, New Jersey: July 2008).
[56] Urenco is jointly owned by the United Kingdom, the Netherlands,
and two German utilities.
[57] United Kingdom Department of Energy and Climate Change,
Management of the UK's Plutonium Stocks: A consultation on the long-
term management of UK owned separated civil plutonium (London,
England: February 2011).
[End of section]
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